


Lemon Detox

by zimriya



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Accidental Dating, Accidental Sexting, Alternate Universe - Office, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Minor Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Qian Kun, Minor Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:13:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23619568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimriya/pseuds/zimriya
Summary: The text reads:Taeyong-hyung, I don’t know if you meant to send me these, but I’m a little drunk and it’s 3am so. Honestly, I think you can do better.Honestly, Taeyong wants to go drown himself in the Han River. His head hurts, he’s more than a little hungover, it is six-thirty a.m. on aMonday, and the first thing he’s waking up to are texts from Jeong Jaehyun. Because Taeyong sent fucking dick pics to Jeong Jaehyun. His coworker, Jeong Jaehyun. Taeyong’s life is a tire fire.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 80
Kudos: 533





	Lemon Detox

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt from [@sugarbun](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1242632099846389761) on Twitter; I had just done a college au, so I decided it was time to do an office au. Please enjoy. ~~We all know Jeong Jaehyun would.~~ For someone who works in an office, I sure was nervous about writing this, so everyone, just suspend your belief a whole lot. 
> 
> Betaed by Hexmen. Shout out to Aixing, for brief comma consult and also some fake KakaoTalk messages (that tragically were not used in the fic.) Also shout out to the OC Kyungchul. I don't even have a face claim for you but you certainly get to always be That Dick.
> 
> Title from “Whiplash” by NCT 127.
> 
> This fic has been translated into [Russian](https://ficbook.net/readfic/9556319).

The text reads: `Taeyong-hyung, I don’t know if you meant to send me these, but I’m a little drunk and it’s 3am so. Honestly, I think you can do better.`

And: `Like, for one, where did you even take these? Your bathroom? Please, Hyung, you’re not in college anymore. Bedroom or go home, period.`

And: `Also, I don’t think you have a bad angle in you, but this might be a bad angle for you, like I feel like you should try from above.`

And: `Do you have a selfie stick?`

And: `I’d invest in a selfie stick. You really want to sell the whole voyeur thing and you can’t do that from within an arm’s distance.`

And: `And while I’m at it, what the heck is your lighting? I get it’s a bathroom, but, Hyung, there is no artistry.`

And: `You need fucking artistry.`

And: `On the cock front, though, 10/10 for I guess not size, but looks? Can I say that?`

And: `You have a beautiful dick, Taeyong-hyung.`

And: `Whoever you meant to send these to is very, very lucky.`

And: `I’m jealous.`

And: `Shit.`

And finally: `Can we pretend I didn’t send any of that last bit?`

Honestly, Taeyong wants to go drown himself in the Han River. His head hurts, he’s more than a little hungover, it is six-thirty a.m. on a _Monday_ , and the first thing he’s waking up to are thirteen texts from Jeong Jaehyun. Thirteen texts from Jeong Jaehyun about Taeyong’s fucking nude photo—Taeyong’s fucking _dick pic._ Because _Taeyong_ sent a fucking _dick pic_ to Jeong Jaehyun.

His coworker, Jeong Jaehyun.

Taeyong’s entire life is a tire fire.

Granted, Jaehyun is also Johnny and Mark’s roommate, but he’s first and foremost _Taeyong’s coworker_. At work, they’ve spoken maybe a total of twenty words to each other and only have each other’s personal numbers from that time when Ten was on vacation and couldn’t handle all of the design team’s intra-company interaction with purchasing. They’ve interacted on company trips and Jaehyun is, again, _Johnny and Mark’s roommate_ , but Taeyong is not single and Jaehyun is—tragically pretty—he’s straight—he has to be—he literally cannot be anything but that—and Taeyong—sent—dick photos—

“What the fuck have I done?” he says.

At his side, Ruby has switched from snoring quietly into the blankets to licking incessantly at whatever part of Taeyong’s face she can reach under his glasses. It’s good. Taeyong doesn’t have much love for himself at this point in time, but at least someone always loves him, even if it’s just his dog.

“Ruby-yah,” Taeyong manages, voice as much of a wreck as his professional life. “Appa is an idiot.”

Ruby is clearly ready to be let out and fed; the moment Taeyong finishes speaking, she’s up, making a beeline towards the kitchen and her empty food dish. Normally this would be where Taeyong would get up and follow her to feed her breakfast, but instead, he stays in bed, staring tragically at the ceiling of his apartment. When he picks the phone back up, the texts from Jaehyun haven’t disappeared.

“An idiot,” he says again, switching screens to his chat with Ten. `Ten-ah. Something terrible has happened. Please do not let Doyoung be in charge of consoling me.`

`Lol?` Ten replies immediately, attached to his phone and up at six-thirty on a Monday like the rest of the design team. `Why do you need consoling? What terrible thing?`

Ruby comes hurtling back into the room, spring-boarding off of the floorboards to land directly on Taeyong’s chest with a surprising amount of force. The breath leaves Taeyong’s lungs with an audible, “oof.”

“Hi,” he says, when she resumes the frantic licking. “Hi, yes, I’m going to let you out and feed you.” There’s a courtyard on his floor that’s perfect for a dog Ruby’s size, which had been the deciding factor in Taeyong even renting the place to begin with. His dog very clearly understands, because she goes pelting off of Taeyong’s chest and shoulders and back off towards the front door.

Taeyong heaves out another long sigh and struggles to get the covers up to his chin. He’s naked. It’s awful. Taeyong never sleeps naked when he’s sober. “Fuck,” he says emphatically. “Fuck.”

Ten hasn’t stopped texting. `What terrible thing, Taeyong-hyung? It’s almost Valentine’s Day. Did Kyungchul break up with you the day before Valentine’s Day? I always knew he was the kind of asshole who’d do something like that. I’ll key his car.`

Taeyong blinks.

And blinks.

And _blinks_.

Ruby _whines_.

“I know,” Taeyong says, still staring blankly down at his phone. `Kyungchul? Doesn’t have? A car?` he tells Ten in three separate KakaoTalk messages, more than a little confused. And then it occurs to him that Kyungchul is _his boyfriend_ , and, well.

“Shit,” Taeyong says out loud. “Shit.” He clicks back into the scene of the crime and scrolls up through Jaehyun’s barrage of messages to see that he did indeed include several suggestive emoji immediately following the photo. He shuts his eyes then opens them again. _Shit._ It’s likely the nude photos were for _Kyungchul,_ his boyfriend.

To be fair: Kyungchul, his boyfriend whom he hasn’t seen in ages. Their relationship is in the death knells, honestly, and Drunk-Taeyong evidently decided to send naked photos as a last resort. A quick perusal through his internet history confirms that; the last searched phrase `how to renew the spark` is still accusingly loaded in the Safari app, horribly misspelled. Drunk-Taeyong clearly meant to send the photos to Kyungchul as some sort of last-ditch effort to save their relationship.

Not.

To Jeong Jaehyun.

“They don’t even have the same last name!” Sober-Taeyong wails, more than a little despairingly, before rolling over to try to smother himself in his own pillow. Ruby immediately returns to stand on him, this time on his back. The neat pin-pricks of her claws on the heated skin of his bare torso and the warm rasp of her tongue all over his incredibly ticklish nape are a welcome penance for all of Taeyong’s sins. “Ruby-yah,” Taeyong says. “I need you to eat my body when I expire. I realize you’re tiny, so you’ll have to eat me over the course of a few months, but leave nothing behind. Consume me down to the bone.”

It’s possible Taeyong’s still a little drunk, or something. He’s not normally nearly this dramatic.

Ruby keeps licking behind his ears.

“Yes,” Taeyong says, more than a little nonsensically. “Good girl.” Maybe if he just lies here it’ll all go away. Maybe if he just shuts his eyes, it’ll all have been a horrible dream.

Like clockwork, his phone alarm starts going off again, letting Taeyong know it is now six forty-five in the morning on a Monday, and if he’s not up and in the shower by seven, he’s going to have to go to work dirty. That’s unacceptable on even a normal day, but this morning, Taeyong smells distinctly like he spent the weekend getting drunk enough to think it was a good idea to send naked photos to people.

Taeyong rolls over, unseating his dog, who vacates the bed and goes scampering back towards the kitchen. He rights his glasses. He picks up his phone.

`Taeyong-hyung? Are you upset he broke up with you? Did you break up with him?`

`Fuck off, he didn’t break up with me, you dick`, Taeyong texts Ten back, more than a little annoyed. (At himself, mostly, but Ten’s an easy scapegoat.)

`Oh.`

`Yeah, oh.`

`So what happened then?`

Taeyong leaves Ten on read. His other options are either his frankly depressing chat with Kyungchul or the one with Jaehyun, but Kyungchul is radio silent as always and Jaehyun hasn’t texted him anything else since that morning. This is good, because Taeyong doesn’t think his heart would be able to take it. He clicks on Jaehyun’s dumb face regardless, hating that his profile picture is _adorable_ —Jaehyun smiling with dimples and darker brown hair, wearing a _Christmas hat_. He doesn’t click through to see that, content to just stare at all the texts in the chat window themselves. `Can we pretend I didn’t send any of that last bit?` reads the last one. Taeyong smooths a finger across the words, fighting the urge to scream.

`Taeyong-hyung, I can see you reading these`, says Ten.

Taeyong ignores him. At the top of his chat with Jaehyun, accusing and all together nauseating, is the cursed photo itself. When Taeyong clicks on that, he notes that as Jaehyun had stated, the lighting in his bathroom really is quite abysmal. Granted, the whole thing is abysmal, from the lack of clothes to the fact that he has both eyes shut. The thing he’s doing with his tongue that was probably supposed to be seductive really only looks like something he ought to see a doctor about.

Taeyong hits the back button in time to get another pop-up notification of a text from Ten, this one saying, `Just because you’re not reading them anymore doesn’t mean shit, Taeyong-hyung. I know you’re still online.`

Taeyong keeps ignoring him, before taking a screenshot of his and Jaehyun’s entire exchange. He thinks briefly that he ought to crop his dick out of it, but then, he and Ten have been friends since school. It’s fine. He sends the photo to Ten.

Ten’s barrage abruptly stops.

`Once again, you are in charge of the consoling`, Taeyong types in the ensuing silence. `Doyoung will literally only laugh at me, but you, at least, will have sympathy, because you are a good friend.`

Ten doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

Ruby returns and gets back up on the bed, whining.

Taeyong reaches out to pet her.

`I don’t know what you’re talking about`, Ten says finally, with a surprising amount of gravitas. `I’m laughing at you right now.`

Taeyong hates texting. Everything is so fucking toneless through texting. `I take it back. You are an asshole`, he says.

`You sent naked photos to Jaehyunnie!` Ten says and Taeyong can practically hear the impossible hangul capslock and the unbottled glee. `Jeong Jaehyun!` Ten continues. `Jeong Yuno!` He pauses, clearly thinking. `You know I get why he decided to go by his birth name when he was hired. It is awkward. I feel like I’ve done Yunho Daepyo-nim wrong, and Yunho Daepyo-nim is lovely. Although, I guess technically he switched back to his birth name in college—Jaehyunnie really is so much fun to talk to, Taeyong-hyung, I don’t know why you’re always running away from him.`

`Ten, I literally do not care about Jaehyun’s sordid history with renaming`, says Taeyong, ignoring the informal reference to their company President—and the no-good-awful reminder of that time he nearly fell into a recycling bin in his haste to avoid Jaehyun and Mark—with only one eye twitch. `You’re missing the more important part where I sent him a photo of myself naked!`

`Right, yes.` Ten appears to be doing his best to rally himself for more proper best-friending. `You did do that.` There’s a beat. `But he told you that you have a beautiful dick, so I don’t know if we can safely say you’re the worse-off party here.`

That’s—well that’s fair, Taeyong has to concede. He peels the blanket away from his lower half and glances down, considering. His dick is… average, he wants to say. Normal looking. Not as slender as one would have expected given the rest of him, but good enough. And like. Well. Taeyong supposes he’d say it’s pretty? Taeyong has seen his share of dicks in the flesh and on the screen and he’s never really gone around thinking they’re _beautiful_ , but—Taeyong’s dick certainly isn’t _ugly_.

`Fuck you`, he tells Ten. `My dick is fucking gorgeous.`

There is terrible, terrible silence. Then: `Prove it.`

Taeyong hates him. `I hate you.`

`I already know you have the guts to do it`, Ten continues. `The photo is already on your phone. Show me the goods, Hyung, I’m waiting.`

`I wish you’d just go emigrate back to Thailand`, says Taeyong, deleting the cursed screencap and selfie completely off his phone.

`Love you and your pretty dick too, Taeyong-hyung`, says Ten.

Taeyong gets to his feet with a drawn out groan. “I need new friends _and_ a new job,” he says out loud.

Ruby runs circles around his legs.

“Yes, we’re going out,” Taeyong says, grabbing a pair of clean pajama pants and a t-shirt out of a drawer, deciding to forgo boxers. “At least I still have you, Ruby,” he mumbles, shoving his phone into a pocket and going to grab the leash and bags.

Ruby barks.

* * *

The next text comes when Taeyong is outside shivering, waiting for his dog to pee into a few artfully landscaped bushes. It’s cold for February and Taeyong’s only in a t-shirt and pajama pants, but Ruby is the love of his life, so he’s bearing it. Besides, he deserves to freeze to death at this point, given that the alternative is going back inside to get ready to go to work. Perishing in his building courtyard would be totally preferable. The chime of his phone is therefore a welcome distraction, so Taeyong fishes the thing free, expecting more from Ten, or even Doyoung, who no doubt Ten has already appraised of the situation.

The text is from Jaehyun.

Taeyong nearly drops his phone.

`I am so sorry, Taeyong-hyung`, Jaehyun’s written, back to sounding more like Jeong Jaehyun sawon-nim and less like someone who critiques cock photos for a living. `What can I do to make it up to you? Can I buy you dinner? I should buy you dinner.`

Taeyong doesn’t want to go to dinner with Jaehyun. Taeyong would like to erase all of his previous interactions with Jaehyun, starting from the moment Jaehyun started working at Swing two years prior, when Taeyong was not in a relationship and Jaehyun had dimples and pretty hair and was very suddenly not just Johnny’s boyfriend Mark’s roommate.

Taeyong would really just like to die.

`You can delete any and all mention of this incident from your brain and phone`, he says, and then pockets his phone before he can watch the number beside the message disappear. “Ruby-yah,” he calls, when she starts sniffing at flowers. “It’s time to go in. Appa has to go drown himself in the shower.”

Ruby just barks, tail wagging.

Taeyong allows it.

At least one member of his family is happy about something.

* * *

Doyoung is waiting for Taeyong when he gets through building security, standing just beyond the metal detectors with a tea in one hand and a coffee in the other. His suit is unfairly pristine this morning and his hair is artfully styled and falling across his brows. He’s still got his coat and backpack on, but his face is almost entirely shit-eating grin.

“Don’t talk to me,” Taeyong says, looping his ID around his neck with one hand and grabbing hold of the coffee with the other. He smiles at building security, dipping his head in greeting, before turning back to his asshole best friend. “Don’t fucking talk to me. I’m serious, Doyoung-ah.”

Somehow Doyoung grins even wider. “Lee Taeyong daeri-nim,” he says, like they’re normal workers in a normal top-down hierarchy. He matches pace with Taeyong as they cross to the elevators, still grinning.

Taeyong hits the elevator button more than a little aggressively, feeling a headache start between his eyes. “Doyoung, I’m serious.” The numbers at the top of the elevator only read floor five so they won’t have to wait too long, which Taeyong is honestly grateful for. But a glance out of the corner of his eye shows that his best friend is miming zipping his lips closed. Taeyong sighs. He supposes he might as well get it over with. “Listen—” he starts to say, fully willing to take whatever crap Doyoung’s going to give him when they’re alone together in the elevator, but before he can, they’re stopped by shouting.

It’s—Taeyong fights the urge to look around for fucking _cameras_ —Jaehyun and Johnny, who is yelling for them to wait. The elevators ding open right about that time, but Doyoung’s already seen Johnny and waved, practically radiating glee. “Youngho-hyung!” he says. “Jaehyunnie!”

The elevator doors shut.

“I hate you,” Taeyong says out of the side of his mouth.

“It’s rude not to hold the door for our friends,” Doyoung says, not even bothered. He is still waving and smiling.

“You’re a fucker,” Taeyong tells him, but turns to face the music.

Johnny is racing across the lobby to the elevators in long-legged, bounding strides, hauling a clearly embarrassed Jaehyun by one hand. Johnny is tall and well dressed and grinning infectiously at Doyoung and Taeyong, waving with all of his free arm. Jaehyun is much more subdued, very much being dragged along by his overenthusiastic Labrador of a roommate, and his ears—Taeyong notes—are rapidly going pink. It’s awful. Back before Kyungchul got weird about Jaehyun and Taeyong started making a point of not being alone in rooms with him (fuck the death knells; their relationship is ready to be put in the ground; Taeyong should fucking… get on that, ASAP) Jaehyun’s lie-detector ears were Taeyong’s favorite thing. Now, looking at the tiny slivers of pink poking through Jaehyun’s unfairly pretty brown hair, Taeyong only wants the ground to swallow him whole.

Fuck.

Jaehyun’s seen Taeyong’s dick.

Fuck.

“Thanks,” says Johnny, as he skids to a stop beside Taeyong and Doyoung, tie askew. He shakes his hair out of his eyes and straightens his suit. “Taeyong-ah. Doyoung-ah.”

Taeyong dips his head in acknowledgement. “Johnny-hyung.”

“Hi,” Doyoung says. “Jaehyunnie.”

At Johnny’s side, Jaehyun looks miserable. “Uh, hi, Doyoung-hyung. T-taeyong-hyung.” The stutter in Taeyong’s name is minor, but Taeyong notices anyway. “Thanks for waiting.” Jaehyun looks like he may bow.

“Anything for my favorite dongsaeng,” says Doyoung, even though his favorite dongsaeng is absolutely _not_ Jeong Jaehyun, and Taeyong may kill him.

Johnny at least keeps smiling. “How was your weekend?” he says. The elevators ding open again and all four of them step in, turning to face the doors without pause.

“Good,” Doyoung says as the doors close. He reaches out to hit the buttons for their respective floors. “How was yours?”

“It’s Jaehyunnie’s birthday tomorrow,” Johnny says, like all of them don’t know. He tugs Jaehyun closer—they’re still holding hands, Taeyong can’t help but note. “We went out yesterday—” His eyes seem to widen and for some reason now he’s staring awkwardly between Jaehyun and Taeyong. Taeyong sighs, ready for even more death.

“Your birthday is on Valentine’s Day,” says Doyoung, valiantly keeping the conversation afloat. “Right, Jaehyun-ah? Are you doing anything fun?”

“Yes,” Jaehyun says finally, as the elevator slides open on Taeyong’s floor. “Uh—nothing fun—Taeyong-hyung—”

“Lunch time,” Taeyong says, without making eye contact. He steps around the hulk that is Johnny and out of the elevator and doesn’t even look back to say goodbye to Doyoung.

“Uh, okay—” Jaehyun starts to say as Taeyong goes, but Taeyong just keeps walking. He can see Ten and Mark ahead of him, clearly having just been to the main office to fill their water bottles. Neither of them sees Taeyong, but Taeyong picks up the pace anyway

“Ten—”

“Bye, Taeyong-ah,” calls Johnny loudly from behind him. “Say hi to Mark for me!” And part of the tension in Taeyong’s shoulders starts to unlock when Mark, who isn’t even the baby of the group anymore because of Donghyuck and Yerim, trips over air and nearly goes down in the middle of the hallway. He’s skinny and handsome and wearing a suit that really doesn’t quite fit him, but he’s also rapidly turning the color of tomatoes.

“Hyung!” Mark hisses, face scarlet, and it’s not clear which of them he’s addressing.

Johnny just laughs, booming and bright, before the elevator can take him away—he must have his foot in it, or something. “Hi, Mark!” he says. “Bye, Mark!” The doors close with another ding.

Taeyong sips his coffee and watches Mark furiously straighten his clothes, finally starting to feel at ease. “Good morning, Mark-yah,” he says, falling into step beside him and Ten.

Mark keeps rubbing at his pants and glances around the hallway nervously, in case Donghyuck has for some reason changed his hours and come in early. Their intern is always punctual, but lately he’s been matching his schedule to Taeil-hyung’s, and everyone is very kindly pretending not to notice. Moon Taeil, besides being an asset to the design team and the eldest after Amber-noona and Donghae-hyung (Team Leader and Deputy Team Leader, respectively) is always the last to the office. He values his sleep. Taeyong understands.

“Sorry, Taeyong-hyung,” says Mark as they reach the suite labeled Design Team and step inside. “I—he needs to stop—I’ll ask him to stop—it’s unprofessional—”

Taeyong waves him off and takes another sip of his coffee, delighting in the burn. “It’s fine, Mark,” he says. “Honestly, no one’s going to get on your case about it—Donghae-hyung is literally dating someone in HR.”

But Mark’s still pink and embarrassed and looking like he’d rather Taeyong just drop it, so Taeyong does. When Mark heads to his own desk and Taeyong is left alone, he’s reminded once again that he loves it here, among the computers and friends.

Doyoung comes up to stand beside him, nearly giving Taeyong a heart attack because he hadn’t realized he’d gotten off the elevator. “So,” Doyoung says. “What’s this about you showing Jaehyunnie your cock?”

“Why are you even on this floor?” Taeyong spits, before pivoting purposefully to go bury himself in paperwork for the rest of the morning.

* * *

At noon, Taeyong logs off his computer and locks the screen, then leans back in his chair, stretching. He’s been working nonstop on some proofs for mockups to send to Heechul-hyung, since Space Big Star’s annual spring membership training is coming up in April. Taeyong only calls Heechul-hyung “Heechul-hyung” because Heechul-hyung is the most demanding client Taeyong’s ever had the pleasure of working for, and the types of things he wants to put Space Big Star’s logo on are… interesting, to say the least. Taeyong doesn’t even know what Space Big Star _is_ , beyond Heechul-hyung’s pride and joy. This time Heechul-hyung wants… human sized collars with Space Big Star’s logo on them, and while Taeyong can do that for him, Taeyong has a lot of questions.

He also has a terrible amount of tension in his neck from all the time spent leaning close to designs, in between emails to Ten and Taemin-hyung, who’s his usual contact in purchasing. He’s also been back and forth with Doyoung, who’s gone from teasing to micromanaging as scheduled and is already starting to breathe down Taeyong’s neck regarding other projects. Technically speaking Heechul-hyung is Doyoung’s client, since Doyoung’s the one working directly with him in marketing, but Heechul-hyung is Heechul-hyung, and he does most of his business with Taeyong.

It’s nice, honestly. Taeyong knows if he worked anywhere else, this sort of thing would be practically unheard of.

It’s still unfairly stressful, even when he’s not working on proofs for human sized collars and food bowls. (Honestly what the fuck kind of company _is_ Space Big Star?)

Taeyong leans back in his seat and stretches his arms up as far as they go until his back pops with a loud crack. “Ow,” he says, somewhat nonsensically since it’s not like it hurts; it just feels like a much needed release of tension. Taeyong ought to invest in a better chair, honestly, but then he’d have to somehow wheel it into the office and get it up to the twenty-seventh floor, and that just seems like a lot of work, for one person.

Taeyong’s back and shoulders aren’t that bad.

He tilts his head to both sides and this time his neck cracks. “Ow,” Taeyong says again.

“You should get that checked out,” says Ten, leaning up against Taeyong’s desk with a grin. “Are you coming with us to lunch?”

Taeyong sighs, noting that the rest of the design team has gathered as usual over in the doorway, talking amongst themselves and clearly waiting for both Ten and Taeyong. Taeyong feels guilty and stupid and _like an idiot_ , but he shakes his head. “No, I have to go up to purchasing,” he says.

Ten stares.

“I’ve got to talk to Jaehyun,” Taeyong manages.

Ten _stares_.

“Not like that, you fucker,” Taeyong sputters.

Ten takes a step back with both hands raised. “I’m not judging. You and Jaehyunnie clearly have a very comfortable relationship—”

Taeyong is going to strangle him. “We’re not”—he breaks off and then lowers his voice, glancing around nervously like anyone else is listening, let alone going to understand or care—“we’re not in a relationship!”

Ten’s still got his hands in the air and he says, like a fucker, “Taeyongie-hyung who am I to judge your relationship. I too have a paramour in purchasing—”

“I am going to _kill you_ ,” Taeyong says, at full volume this time, in time for Donghae-hyung to come out of his office and stare at them both, not blinking.

“Taeyong,” he says finally. “Ten.”

“Donghae-hyung, hi,” Taeyong says, standing, bowing. “Uh—”

“Taeyongie-hyung was just explaining how he’s not coming to lunch with us,” Ten says, _still a fucker_.

Donghae-hyung’s eyes go huge.

Taeyong is going to have to _more than murder Ten_.

“I just have to speak with someone in purchasing—it’ll be fine, Donghae-hyung, promise—”

“Oh—”

“Just for today,” Taeyong rushes to say. “Tomorrow I’ll go with you all, I just need to get this done before the end of the day—”

“Taeyong, it’s fine.” Donghae-hyung still kind of looks like Taeyong’s kicked his dog, but he lets Taeyong weave around him so that he can get to the elevators anyway. It’s terrible. Taeyong feels terrible.

`Xuxi says the 28th floor has the best conference room for a quickie`, texts Ten somewhere between the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth floors. `Be safe. Use protection.`

`You’re such a fucking dick, Ten Lee!`

`Careful, Taeyong-hyung, I’m not like you. I don’t send dick pics.`

`I was drunk and it was an accident!`

`I’m not judging you.`

`God, just. I’m going to make sure Jaehyunnie’s deleted them, that’s all.`

`Oh, Jaehyunnie. Careful, Taeyong-hyung. What will Kyungchul think?`

`Oh, now you remember I have a boyfriend`, Taeyong types, with more than enough force, right as the doors open and a nervous looking girl moves to get in.

“Oh—” She stops, seeing Taeyong, who can’t even be bothered to smile politely as he goes past, still trying to murder Ten with his thumbs alone. “Um. Nice to meet you—”

`Also, nobody wants to hear about all the places in the building you and Lucas have fucked!`

`You lie`, Ten says. `I know there was a betting pool for when we’d get together.`

`That’s because this company is practically incestuous and everyone knows everything!` says Taeyong, rounding the corner in search of Jaehyun’s cubicle, where he knows he sits next to Dong Sicheng and across from Lucas. He walks quickly, since sales is tragically also on this floor and Johnny and Yuta are the last people Taeyong wants to run into at the moment.

`Well not everything`, Ten says. `I’ve yet to see photos of your supposedly beautiful dick.`

Taeyong stops cold in the center of the hallway, narrowly missing a maintenance man walking by hauling an excessive number of water jugs, all of them empty.

“Excuse me,” the man says.

Taeyong dips his head into a bow. `Ten`, he says.

`Shit, Taeyong, that was a bad joke, I’m sorry. Jaehyunnie would never. You know that.`

Taeyong swallows, stomach turning awful, ugly knots. `Yeah, I know, I just. Fuck, Ten-ah.`

`Sicheng says they’re still working`, Ten says. `They haven’t gone to lunch. Just go ask him to delete it, Taeyong-hyung. I’m sure he will. He’s a good kid.`

Taeyong doesn’t move, for some reason still a little anxious. `He’s only a year younger than you.`

`And only two years younger than you`, says Ten, like always.

Taeyong rolls his eyes. `Save it for after I’m single`, he says, finally resuming his walk. There’s a pause.

`No way`, Ten says.

`You’re going to tell me you’re surprised?` Taeyong says. He bipasses the first door to go through the one closer to Jaehyun’s desk, mostly so he doesn’t have to go past Yuta and Johnny. `Weren’t you the one telling me that you thought he was an asshole?`

`He is an asshole`, Ten says. `But I only say that because you implied you’re breaking up with him. Are you really?`

Taeyong shrugs, then realizes Ten can’t see him. `I dunno`, he says. `I mean… the spark isn’t there.`

There’s a beat.

`Wait. Lee Taeyong. Were you trying to send your boyfriend a dick pic to “renew the spark”?`

Taeyong stares briefly at the ceiling.

`This makes so much more sense!`

`Ten.`

`I mean we all have our secrets but you don’t exactly give off a “willing to sext” vibe.`

Taeyong puts his phone in his pocket and fights the urge to bury his face in his hands. In front of him sits Jaehyun, leaning forward in his seat and chewing on a pen. His workstation is absolutely covered in personality like the rest of them, but the most terrible thing is the excess of red and pink hearts, no doubt courtesy of Johnny. There are preemptive happy birthday wishes pinned up to the side of his monitor, as well as a tiny wind-up-heart toy, placed less than perfectly to the right of Jaehyun’s mouse. After a moment, Jaehyun reaches out his free hand and winds it up, setting it back down immediately so that it starts walking in circles around on his desk.

His fingers are really fucking attractive. Taeyong wants to die. “Jaehyun-ah,” he manages.

Jaehyun’s pen nearly goes flying, but he grabs it in a way that somehow ends up looking cool, before dropping it onto his keyboard so he can spin to face Taeyong. “Taeyong-hyung,” he says. “Hi.”

Sicheng appears to be on a very important call regarding material quality, but he still shoots Taeyong and Jaehyun a curious look anyway.

“Hi,” Taeyong replies, sparing Sicheng his own glance, before turning his full attention to Jaehyun. “Can we—” He breaks off, not even sure where they’d go besides the—fuck Ten and his dumb boyfriend—conference room—and not willing to be alone with Jaehyun in case that would be even more damning. “Look, you don’t have to buy me dinner—”

Jaehyun’s eyes widen and Sicheng’s sentence briefly breaks off into a cough, so Taeyong stops and tries again.

“Have you deleted them?” he manages. “Tell me you’ve deleted them. I need you to—they weren’t for you, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Jaehyun manages.

Taeyong stares. “ _Obviously_ ,” he says again. “Why would I—Jaehyun we’re not—you’re Mark and Johnny-hyung’s roommate—”

Jaehyun’s ears have gone red and he rapidly starts nodding along. “No, yes, of course—I deleted them, promise—here—” And he thrusts his phone into Taeyong’s face, unlocked and everything.

Taeyong takes it delicately, trying not to feel self-conscious. “You’re sure—”

Jaehyun waves a hand, ears still bright red. “I’m not lying but you should see for yourself.”

Taeyong feels like a fucking voyeur, but he clicks into Jaehyun’s camera roll anyway, noting that there is no evidence of his horrible life choices anywhere, but that there is a plethora of surprisingly artistic photos of the plants around the building, and the view out of Jaehyun, Mark, and Johnny’s apartment. There are also more than a few unfairly attractive selfies, but Taeyong does his best not to snoop. He’s still got a boyfriend at the moment, and not even he and Kyungchul hand each other their phones. Of course he and Kyungchul haven’t actually spoken since well before Taeyong tried to send naked photos to save what is very clearly already dead, but the point still stands.

Taeyong goes to hand the phone back. “Thanks—”

“You don’t want to check KakaoTalk too?” says Jaehyun before he can.

Taeyong freezes with the phone in his outstretched hand. His voice comes out a squeak. “What?” This feels so weirdly significant-other-level invasive and Taeyong doesn’t know what to _do with it_. He’s just Jaehyun’s coworker and roommates’ friend, not… someone who should get access to Jaehyun’s text messages, see his lock screen, know that Jaehyun has Twitter and is one of those idiots who hooks his work email to his phone and lets the unread notifications reach horrifying proportions—he has nearly 400 unread emails; Taeyong’s going to break out in hives just _looking at it_.

“Just.” Jaehyun takes the phone and Taeyong’s hand, unlocking it again and tapping on KakaoTalk. “To make sure that I deleted it there too,” he says, pushing the phone back towards Taeyong. He’s still kind of holding Taeyong’s hand. Taeyong’s trying not to notice, instead squinting at the screen.

Jaehyun has done as he said and deleted all traces of the incriminating naked photo of Taeyong from his and Taeyong’s conversation, and Taeyong should leave it at that. Unfortunately, as he’s moving to hand Jaehyun the phone back, his brain choses that exact moment to remind him that he sent a screencap to Ten. “How do I know you haven’t sent it to anyone else?” he hears himself say, just as his eyes catch on a more important thing. The thing where his contact name in Jaehyun’s phone appears to be `Hot Taeyong (work)`.

“Oh, you’re right,” Jaehyun says, dutifully tapping the back button on his screen so that he can select another conversation. (`Johnny-hyung (work)`, Taeyong’s brain notes reflexively.) “I texted Johnny-hyung about it, but I didn’t send photos, see?” Jaehyun puts the phone back in Taeyong’s face displaying his conversation with Johnny this time, but Taeyong isn’t listening. He’s still stuck on the contact thing.

“Hang on,” he says, moving the phone aside so that he can meet Jaehyun’s surprisingly earnest eyes. “Am I in your phone as ‘Hot Taeyong (work)?’”

Jaehyun stares at him for a split second like he’s grown a second head, and then abruptly his ears go even brighter red. “What?” he says, pulling his phone back towards himself like that’ll help. “No.” He locks the phone and pulls it free of Taeyong’s hand.

“I am,” Taeyong says. He’s aware that he’s reaching a more considerable volume and that Sicheng is no longer busy on a call—that Lucas is sitting at the desk directly facing Jaehyun’s, and he’s tall and able to make eye contact and his eyebrows keep dancing; that Yuta and Johnny sit only three rows away—but he can’t seem to stop himself. “I’m in your phone as ‘Hot Taeyong (work).’”

“No—”

“I _am_ —”

“Okay, maybe you are—”

“‘Hot Taeyong (work)!’”

“Listen, I wanted to just put ‘Hot Taeyong’ but I was worried I’d get confused,” says Jaehyun quickly. “And please, lower your voice—”

“Get confused?” Taeyong sputters. “Get confused—how many hot Taeyongs do you know?”

Jaehyun’s ears seem to blush even harder and he casts frantically around the office like any one of the senior members of the purchasing team are going to come help him. Like Donghee-hyungnim himself is going to emerge with a project that only Jeong Jaehyun, two-year employee of Swing can complete.

“Not like that,” Jaehyun says finally, when no one comes to help him. “More just… if you were in my phone as just ‘Hot Taeyong’ I might, uh, text you weird shit when I’m not sober.” He risks a smile, the dimpled fucker. “I’d think you’d understand, given the circumstances.”

Taeyong is going to kill him.

Screw getting promoted, screw his four years with Swing, screw how happy he is to come to work every day, and screw surprisingly good work life balance with only one (1) eccentric client.

Murder.

Taeyong is gong to commit murder. “I’ll have you know, Jeong Jaehyun sawon-nim, that I do not make a habit of texting indecent photos to complete strangers,” he says, with as much dignity as possible.

Jaehyun’s mouth drops open and his eyes go very wide. “You—it’s company policy not to use titles—I’m not a complete stranger—”

“You should get back to work,” Taeyong continues venomously, and turns to go. But then he turns back, pointing. “Lose my number,” he spits, and then strides back the way he came.

`I hate him`, the texts Ten in the elevator, ignoring whatever else it is his friend has said in the interim. `I take back everything I may or may not have implied about how attractive he is because I hate him.`

`Uh… I take it he didn’t delete the dick pics?`

`Oh, he did`, Taeyong says. `But he’s still a fucker.`

`Right. Cool. So you’re on your way back down?`

`A fucker`, Taeyong says.

`Cool.`

* * *

Eight hours later, it is nearly nine p.m, Taeyong is off work, Taeyong is _single_ , and Taeyong is just not-sober enough that texting Jeong Jaehyun sounds like an utterly good idea. Jaehyun is still an asshole and Taeyong still wants to fight him on sight, but there’s just enough alcohol humming through his veins that he finds himself clicking on the stupid, attractive face bubble anyway, tapping fruitlessly at the bottom of his phone screen until it brings up the keyboard.

Because Park Kyungchul? Besides being the kind of dick who’d get weird about who Taeyong decides to hang out with—on top of never wanting hang out with any of Taeyong’s friends in the first place because he hates how married to the job Taeyong is, whatever that means; so he’s friends with his coworkers; so what?—is also the sort of asshole who’d break up with Taeyong the day before Valentine’s Day.

Over text.

Without evening answering the phone when Taeyong called him.

Taeyong was going to do the breaking up beforehand, but still. Kyungchul is clearly the worse asshole, and Jaehyun, while still very much also an asshole, is the only person Taeyong can properly complain to about this. Because Jaehyun _understands_. Jaehyun has seen Taeyong’s dick photos.

`Jaehyun-ah`, Taeyong types, squinting more than a little blearily down at his phone. `My boyfriend’s the sort of asshole who’d break up with me the day before Valentine’s Day.`

There is a brief silence, before the number next to Taeyong’s messages disappears. Then Jaehyun says, with a noticeable amount of caution, `Uh, Taeyong-hyung? I thought you wanted me to lose your number?`

`It doesn’t matter`, Taeyong says. `I need to talk to you.`

There’s more silence, but the number next to Taeyong’s messages is gone pretty instantly. `Um, okay?`

`I was going to break up with him first`, Taeyong says. `But he fucking beat me to it. That fucker. Did you know Ten says he’s a fucker? Ten’s right. Ten’s always right. I should listen to Ten more often.`

`Ten-hyung?` Jaehyun’s texting with no delay now. `I’ll call Ten-hyung. You just. Stay where you are.`

`I’m home`, Taeyong says, confused. `Why’re you talking about Ten?`

`You’re the one talking about Ten-hyung, Taeyong-hyung?`

Taeyong squints at his phone some more, before scrolling up a bit. `Huh`, he says. `How about that?`

`Listen, Taeyong-hyung, I’m so sorry that your boyfriend broke up with you.`

`That’s not important, Jaehyunnie-yah`, Taeyong says, listing to the side of his couch a little and disturbing Ruby, who’d been watching the entire spectacle with her head cocked, and who is now eyeing him like she’s ready to judge him for his entire life’s decisions. Taeyong just raises the bottle of soju at her, pleased. He keeps texting with one hand. `The more important thing is the dick photo.`

Jaehyun is silent for a much longer time. `The dick photo`, he says.

Taeyong nods, then takes another sip. `Mmm, you saw it`, he says.

`Uh.`

`Was the dick photo really that bad, Jaehyun-ah?`

Jaehyun seems to take even longer to respond, and Taeyong is seriously considering calling him instead.

`Jaehyun-ah.`

`I mean do you? Want me to be honest? Because I? You were pretty clear today at the office?`

Taeyong stares down at the words trying to make sense of all the questions marks, his head starting to hurt. He puts down the soju so that he can hold his phone with both hands. He immediately regrets putting down the soju. Then he gets it, and he’s suddenly incensed. `Fuck off, that was before my asshole boyfriend dumped me for being ““““““unavailable”””””” Like fucker I put my dick on camera for you. Though to be fair he didn’t actually see it because I sent it to you, but. The point still stands.`

Jaehyun takes another long pause. `Okay, um. You’re home, right? I’m just gonna call Ten-hyung right now, so don’t move.`

`Yah, Jeong Jaehyun, don’t you dare walk out on me`, snaps Taeyong, pointing accusingly at his blank TV and making Ruby whine at him. `We’re in the middle of a conversation.`

Jaehyun doesn’t say anything.

Taeyong gets shakily to his feet and crosses to his frankly beautiful wall to ceiling window, staring out at the night view of Seoul. `Well? Were the photos that bad? Would you break up with me over them? I can’t believe he broke up with me over them.`

`Hyung, you didn’t send them to your boyfriend, remember? You sent them to me?`

Taeyong mulls that over. `Oh yeah`, he says. He goes back to his couch and sits down, looking at the near empty soju bottle on the coffee table. `But say I did send them to him. Do you think he’d have stayed?`

Jaehyun is silent again. Taeyong glares, then hits the call button. Jaehyun fucking _declines his call_ without even letting it ring. Taeyong starts _typing_.

`I’m really sorry, Taeyongie-hyung`, says Jaehyun. `I’m sorry he broke up with you. I know that sucks.`

Taeyong stops on a particularly vicious criticism of Jaehyun’s stupid, ugly face and his dumb, gorgeous dimples, feeling abruptly chastened for the overreaction. `Oh`, he says. `I was gonna break up with him tonight anyway.`

Jaehyun pauses again. `The day before Valentine’s Day?`

`Fuck off`, Taeyong says. `He was a real piece of work. Always getting weird about you, and shit. And yeah you’re pretty, but you’re not even into guys.`

Jaehyun is quiet again, but this time Taeyong doesn’t feel upset or worried. `Erm, he was weird about me? Lol.`

Taeyong flops more solidly into the couch.

`And who told you I’m not into guys?`

Taeyong stares. He switches chats. `Ten-ah`, he says. `Johnny-hyung. Is it true Jaehyunnie’s into guys?`

The response time to that message is so small that KakaoTalk can’t even keep up and Taeyong’s messages are still marked as unread.

`Wow, Jaehyun was right, you are smashed. I’ll be there ASAP. Do not do anything stupid.`

`Fuck you. I’m not stupid.`

`No, of course not. But don’t move.`

Taeyong glares down at his phone, then switches back to his chat with Jaehyun. There’s a lot there, maybe three messages, but Taeyong’s too distracted to read beyond the last one. `Taeyong-hyung? I’m sorry was that too far? I’m so sorry.`

He yawns. `Do you think I’m stupid, Jaehyun-ah?`

`Of course not`, Jaehyun says immediately. `Who said that? Was it your ex-boyfriend? Fuck him. He’s wrong.`

Taeyong hums. “Mmm,” he says out loud, then realizes he needs to type. `But the photos. Do you think the photos were that bad?` Jaehyun goes silent again and Taeyong sighs, annoyed. `You know what, never mind`, he says. `You obviously need more. I’ll send you more. Wait here.`

`What. Taeyong-hyung`—

Taeyong sets down the phone before he can finish reading, and then wiggles around on the couch until he’s got his pants and boxers off. He’ll show Jaehyun. He’ll—he doesn’t have a selfie stick on hand because it’s somewhere in his bedroom closet, but he’ll show him. Taeyong won’t need a selfie stick. Taeyong will fucking… take model-worthy photos all on his own. He picks up his phone, squints down at it, and somehow manages to tap the on screen shutter button a few times. He opens his chat with Jaehyun. He ignores the additional messages. He selects the camera icon, clicks all of the options with painstaking care, and then hits send. `There`, Taeyong says.

Jaehyun’s messages grind to an immediate halt.

Taeyong kind of feels smug, to have forced him into silence. His photos must be _legendary_.

`Well? Be honest.`

It feels like five years before Jaehyun responds. `Do you really want me to?`

Taeyong frowns. Jaehyun is the one who must be stupid. `Clearly`, he says.

Right, says Jaehyun. `Uh… well… honestly, I think, the, uh, there’s really no composition because it’s just`—Jaehyun’s messages slice neatly in two without any punctuation—`you’re not even in the photo, Taeyong-hyung, and, uh, I think a selfie stick really would help?`

Taeyong stares.

Taeyong _stares_.

Taeyong goes to stand and nearly trips over his own pants and boxers, which are still twisted around his legs. He kicks them angrily off and then punts them as far across his apartment as possible. `A selfie stick`, he types. `I’ll show you a selfie stick. I’ll shove a selfie stick up your`—and tragically, Taeyong doesn’t get to finish that last text to Jaehyun, because the door to his apartment slams open, and Ten arrives, stomping into the room and speaking at a volume that is utterly unfair. Taeyong trips, and fumbles the phone, and then falls, face first, to land in a pile somewhere between his coffee table and the front door, bare ass up for the entire world to see and dick thankfully down and out of sight again. He groans, staring at his carpet, then turns his head, trying to regain his breath.

“Taeyong-hyung, I’m here. I hope you didn’t do anything stupid—oh my God why aren’t you wearing pants?” bellows Ten, still at an unfair volume. “Why are you”—there’s the sound of him crossing the apartment, then the dip that must be him bending to pick up Taeyong’s phone—“Why are you texting Jaehyun _your cock_ , Taeyong-hyung?”

Taeyong just stares at a distant point on his wall and waits for death.

* * *

“So that happened,” Taeyong says, the next morning, staring blearily at Ten over breakfast. His friend stayed over because he’s a good person, but his friend also woke him at an ungodly hour to force him to walk the dog, and then loudly made him a fruit smoothie in the blender, definitely only to watch Taeyong’s brain try to leak out his ears at the noise; Ten doesn’t even like fruit.

“It really did,” Ten says, shoveling eggs onto Taeyong’s plate and then shoving the plate into Taeyong’s face. “You really did that.” After a pause, he slides over another plate with even more fruit—this time a strawberry sliced into a heart. “Happy Valentine’s Day, you loser.”

Taeyong stares down the plate of omelet then eyes the fork Ten’s provided him. Oh yeah. It’s Valentine’s Day, now. Jaehyun’s birthday. Taeyong sent Jaehyun more photos of his dick the day before his _birthday_. He keeps staring at the fork. Then he blinks confusedly up at Ten, willing it to make sense.

“I don’t trust you not to try to poke your eyes out with chopsticks,” Ten says at full volume. He picks up the utensil in question, clacks it loudly against the plate, and then sets it down in front of Taeyong again. “Eat.”

Taeyong groans, drops his aching head down onto his arms with a moan, but doesn’t dispute the honest truth of that statement. “Are you sure you gave me pain killers last night?”

“Painkillers and water and Pocari sweat and everything,” Ten says. “It was awful. You kept going on about how you were going to buy a selfie stick so you could stick it up Jaehyunnie’s—”

“Yes, well, thank you, Ten,” says Taeyong, twisting so that he can stare at Ten with at least one bleary eye. Ruby is sitting practically on his feet, clearly waiting for fallout. Taeyong sighs and debates feeding her the entire omelet. “Thank you so much!”

Ten nudges the glass of pureed fruit towards Taeyong, seemingly managing to hit every single instance of unevenness on the countertop. “You’re so welcome, Taeyong-hyung. I was not in the middle of sleeping with my boyfriend of two years or anything, when Jaehyunnie called.” The glass squeals to a stop.

Taeyong’s brain feels like it’s bleeding. “You are the best friend in the entire universe,” he says.

“I am,” Ten says. “But don’t think this gets you out of helping me with the design briefs for Taeyeon-noona.”

Taeyong somehow manages to drag his head back to something of an upright position. “Ten!” he whines.

Ten is having none of it. “Boyfriend of two years,” he says. “Warm, in bed, sleeping. Your bare ass—”

“Fine!” says Taeyong, feeling himself start to flush. “Fine, I’ll do it. What sort of company swag does she want this time?”

“Sexy ones,” Ten says, because he is a literal chaos demon. “The project’s like nearly 95% done. We have a lot of samples.The finals should be arriving at the office today. You can put them next to your people collars—”

Taeyong feels his face flush. “For the last time, you’ve met Heehcul-hyung and you know he _really asked for people collars_ —they’re chokers, Ten, God, fuck—”

“Mhmm,” Ten says, reaching out to take up Taeyong’s abandoned fork and picking up a piece of egg. “Eat your breakfast, Taeyongie-hyung. You’re going to need your strength today.”

Taeyong fights the urge to flip him off and throw him out the apartment, but somehow manages to do just that.

* * *

“Taeyong-hyung, hi, I’ve already deleted them—” says Jaehyun the moment he sees Taeyong coming towards him, but Taeyong holds his hand out to halt him regardless.

“Don’t even speak to me,” he says loudly, pointedly not making eye contact. “Don’t even speak to me. Just show me the proof and we can never speak about it again—”

“I’m really sorry about Kyungchul—”

Taeyong makes an aborted coughing noise upon realizing that Jaehyun _knows who his ex-boyfriend is_ , but somehow manages not to fall flat on his face or do any of the other horrifically embarrassing things his legs feel likely to do at present. He still has a headache and he still feels unsuitable for work, but Mark has assured him he doesn’t look too hungover, and even Doyoung grudgingly admitted that he wouldn’t have assumed Taeyong had been drinking if he hadn’t been informed about it over text that morning.

Sicheng is once again on a call beside Jaehyun, but tragically this time, Taeyong catches a glimpse of Yuta standing over by his desk talking with Luna-noona, clearly in the middle of very important business. Yuta hasn’t noticed Taeyong in return but Taeyong knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, and increases the speed of his words immediately.

“It doesn’t matter,” he snaps, then feeling guilty at the hurt look Jaehyun can’t quite seem to hide from him—what the _fuck_ , Lee Taeyong, get it together. Jaehyunnie is a nice person who doesn’t deserve any of this crap and also, didn’t ask to get sent naked photos again—Taeyong adds, “Uh, I mean, thank you, for that, Jaehyunnie, honest.”

Jaehyun looks like he can’t quite decide what to say, given the very quick change in tone of the conversation. “Uh, okay?” He holds out his phone without saying anything else, expression still a little wary, and somehow even more shy.

Sicheng hangs up and looks like he’s going to say something, so Taeyong grabs the phone out of Jaehyun’s hand and flips very quickly through all three places: the camera roll, Jaehyun’s recently deleted folder, the text thread where he’s still in Jaehyun’s phone as `Hot Taeyong (work)`. There are no photos of Taeyong’s dick in any of those places, so Taeyong hands the phone back. “Right,” he says. “Awesome. Thank you. I’m so, so sorry—”

Jaehyun’s ears are pink again but he smiles up at Taeyong with raw honesty. “No, Hyung, _I’m sorry_. I know you were drunk and I shouldn’t have responded—either time.”

Taeyong waves a hand. “I’m sorry I keep sexually harassing you,” he says. “It won’t happen again.”

At Jaehyun’s side, Sicheng seems to choke on air, but when Taeyong looks at him, the other man is the picture of calm.

Jaehyun shakes his hair down to cover his flushing ears. “I’m not—you weren’t—”

“I totally was,” Taeyong says. “Have been. Anyway, Ten’s instituting a no texting when drunk policy, and now that I’m single there hopefully won’t even be a need for it.” He breaks off, wincing. “Although Ten did rope me into helping with Taeyeon-noona’s latest request and the final samples are _not_ as promised—” He sighs. “Sorry.”

Jaehyun very suddenly looks all business. “They’re not?” His tone has gone hard. “I’ll follow up with that. That’s my supplier. He promised—”

Taeyong’s heart is doing terrible, terrible things right now, but it’s possible it’s remnants of his hangover and not attraction. Jaehyun’s got a line between his brows and a downturn to his mouth and his voice has gone significantly deeper as he’s shifted very quickly into business mode, making a note in his web app notepad to make a call. Taeyong looks between the screen and Jaehyun’s pale, pale fingers with his lips parted. “You don’t have to do that,” he manages.

Jaehyun glances at him. “Actually, I do. It’s my job. Taeyeon-ssi is my client.” He’s still got the wind-up-heart on his desk and now he’s nervously fiddling with it between his fingers. The thing has oversized feet and says “Be Mine” on it in cutesy, English cursive. Taeyong gets the feeling that the person who gave it to him was not an admirer, even though another glance around Jaehyun’s cubicle reveals no shortage of boxes of chocolate. He’s kind of surprised. He hadn’t realized Jaehyun had quite so many admirers. “Uh, yeah,” Jaehyun says. “I’ll get it fixed ASAP. Let me know if marketing tries to give you crap.” He pauses. “Technically Taeyeon-ssi is Victoria-noona’s client.”

Taeyong winces. “Oh, yes,” he says, thinking of the work ethic and no-nonsense attitude of the woman in question and fighting a shudder. “Of course—thanks, Jaehyunnie.”

Jaehyun smiles at him brightly, setting down the toy heart with both dimples poked into his cheeks. He’s all… sparkly. Dressed in a surprisingly well fitted suit with his hair pushed out of his eyes and surrounded by a surplus of candy and birthday wishes because he was born on the most romantic day of the year.

Taeyong is going to murder Ten even more. “So, anyway, I’m sorry,” he says, tilting his head in the direction of Jaehyun’s phone. “And, uh I forgive you for being a dick, and making fun of my photos, haha. Pun totally not intended.” His brain breaks a little but Taeyong manages to stop the joke before it can get even worse. “I get you weren’t being serious. We can just pretend it didn’t happen—”

Jaehyun turns to look up at Taeyong with wide, innocent eyes. “What?” he says, sounding honestly confused. “What do you mean, I wasn’t being serious? Your photos really aren’t good—they lack emotion—” He stops, seemingly realizing what it is he’s said, but it’s too late.

Taeyong has heard.

Taeyong is speechless. He very slowly pulls his hands away from Jaehyun’s desk, straightening simultaneously to his full height.

Jaehyun spins in his chair and stares up at him, mouth open. “Hyung—”

“ _Change my name in your phone, you fucker_ ,” Taeyong hisses at him, pointing, before turning on his heel to go striding out of the office once again.

“Wait—Taeyongie-hyung—”

“Change it!” Taeyong says loudly over his shoulder. “Change it or you’re _dead to me_ —” And then he’s out into the hallway, where he runs immediately into Ten.

“So, how did it go?” his friend asks, falling into step with Taeyong as he heads to the elevators.

“You’re dead to me also,” Taeyong tells him, not even looking.

“Mmm, so bad,” says Ten. “He didn’t delete them?”

Taeyong turns to face him, honestly at his wits end. He stands there, just sort of making noises, while Ten looks at him and nods slowly.

“So he did delete them, then,” he determines.

Taeyong wants to strangle him, and finds that his hands have moved to do just that. “You’re just—” he says, before aborting. “He’s just—”

Ten raises both eyebrows, far too gleeful for the entire situation. “He’s just—”

“I _hate him_ ,” Taeyong says, emphatically, and then spins on his heel and resumes his trek towards the elevator. “And you are the worst for saddling me with one of Victoria-noona’s clients!”

Ten doesn’t follow him, but his laughter as he heads back the way Taeyong had come (obviously going to bother Lucas, or something. Or maybe Johnny—maybe Yuta—Taeyong doesn’t care.) is loud and grates on Taeyong’s ears.

“Lack emotion,” Taeyong mutters as he angrily holds down on the button for the elevator. “‘Your photos lack emotion.’ What the fuck does that even mean?” The rest of the day is spent rushing around working on design prep for Taeyeon-noona, but despite it all, the thought—Jaehyun’s damn, infernal words—settles into Taeyong’s brain like some sort of parasitic worm and _festers_. And he’s not drunk, at two a.m., when he reaches his boiling point and grabs his phone, his wallet, and struggles into shoes. He’s not drunk when he finds himself riding the mostly barren subway all the way to Mark and Jaehyun’s apartment. He’s not drunk when he leans on their buzzer until someone lets him into the building. He’s not drunk when he’s scowling into their security camera waiting to be let into the apartment.

Taeyong’s not drunk.

Taeyong’s stone cold sober.

But Taeyong is also at his fucking _boiling point_ , so.

“Johnny-hyung,” he spits, before the door is even all the way open. “I need you to let me join your photography class.”

It’s Mark, not Johnny, but Taeyong notices he’s wearing an oversized t-shirt that can only belong to Johnny. Mark will do.

“Mark-yah,” he revises. “I need you to get me into Johnny-hyung’s photography class.”

Mark freezes like a deer in the headlights, clearly taking in the picture that Taeyong must make. It’s a shocking one: Taeyong is still in his work clothes and his hair is in utter disarray from all of the yanking at it he’s been doing and he’s developing an eye twitch, but he can’t be stopped, at this point, because it is two in the morning and he is under a terrible, terrible deadline, and Jeong Jaehyun, is an asshole. Taeyong is _allowed_.

“My… boyfriend’s photography class,” Mark says.

Taeyong waves a hand around the apartment at all the things that are very clearly Johnny’s—the photographs, the travel books, the never ending row of dress shoes just inside the foyer. “Your boyfriend,” he says. “Johnny Suh.”

Mark’s eyes go very wide. “Shhhh,” he says.

Taeyong narrows his eyes. “Mark. It’s just me. Are you hiding someone from management in your apartment?” He casts a look towards the kitchen, looks at all the shiny appliances, produces the unfortunate knowledge that of the three of them, Jaehyun’s the one with the cooking genes, and chokes on what wants to be very nervous, very crazy laughter. “Is Stephanie-noona hiding in your ceiling waiting to pounce on you and yell at you for dating someone who doesn’t even work in our department—”

“Shhhhh, Taeyong-hyung, please,” Mark says, still looking desperate, but this time mostly casting frantic little looks towards what Taeyong knows are the bedrooms.

“Lee Mark,” he says. “Mark Lee. It’s not a big deal. You’re fine. Get me into his class.”

Mark tugs nervously at his t-shirt. “Hyung—”

“Get me into his class, Mark-yah,” Taeyong says, as Johnny emerges from one of the bedrooms without a shirt, rubbing sleep from both eyes and yawning. “He said my photos lacked _emotion_ , Mark-yah.”

Mark’s eyes somehow manage to go even wider. “Who said—Taeyong-hyung—”

“My dick photos, Mark-yah,” Taeyong continues, not even caring anymore. “He said they _lacked emotion_ , Mark-yah!”

“Taeyongie?” Johnny says, still rubbing at one eye and now scratching aimlessly at a bite mark on his hip. “What are you doing in our apartment at two in the morning?”

“My dick photos, Mark-yah!” Taeyong says again, at full volume now. “The only emotion required is arousal, and spoiler alert, _I was aroused_!”

Mark has both hands in the air like that’s going to somehow stop Taeyong, and Johnny very abruptly shifts like he’s going to get between the two of them.

“Get me into his class, Mark-yah!” Taeyong says again. “I need to fucking show him!”

Mark looks significantly more comfortable now that he has back up, and steps so that he’s standing almost all the way behind Johnny. “You—I—your dick? Photos?”

Johnny is looking between the two of them with rapidly dawning realization. “Ah, Taeyongie accidentally sent Jaehyunnie naked photos,” he says quickly, clearly trying to rip the band aid off and get everyone up to speed, but also feeling bad about it; he winces. “Sorry—”

Taeyong waves him off. “It’s fine. I’m at peace—”

“You are very clearly not,” Johnny mutters.

“None of that is important,” Taeyong says. “The only important thing is the photography class.”

Johnny nods. “Sure,” he says. “You can join my next class. It’s Saturday.”

Taeyong makes a note. “Send me a calendar invite.”

Johnny makes to do so, then seems to realize he’s not holding his phone. “Will do,” he says. “Mark—”

“Listen, Taeyong-hyung—”

“Dick photos don’t need fucking _emotion_ , Mark-yah!” Taeyong says again, since obviously Mark isn’t understanding the gravity of the situation. “Your roommate is a _fucker_ —”

“Yes, I hear you—I’m not deaf, Taeyong-hyung, so please… stop shouting… we have neighbors—”

The door to Jaehyun’s bedroom creaks open like something out of a fucking horror film, and Taeyong turns on him with his hand outstretched, already pointing.

“It’s fine, Mark,” Jaehyun says, not even sparing Taeyong more than a quick glance. “I’m glad he’s going to take classes with Johnny-hyung.”

“But you’re not an asshole—”

“It’s fine,” Jaehyun says again. “Really, I’m glad.” He looks at Taeyong and fucking smiles. “Johnny-hyung is an expert at photography. I’m sure you’ll improve.”

And Taeyong, admittedly, possibly loses his mind. His palms go sweaty and his ears start ringing and his remaining shreds of dignity and/or self-preservation instincts that had somehow survived until two in the morning on Valentine’s Day give up the ghost. He says, still pointing, still shouting, with absolutely zero concern for Mark or Mark’s neighbors, “You think I’ll improve? _You think I’ll improve_? Fuck you, Jeong. Dick pic. My phone. Tonight.” Taeyong advances towards Jaehyun and jabs his fingers into Jaehyun’s chest—he’s not wearing a shirt either and he’s got a six pack and a fucking outie bellybutton and Taeyong’s pretty sure once the dignity and self-preservation instincts return he’s going to regret this moment for probably the entire rest of his life, but for now—

By the time he’s done they’re practically nose to nose and Jaehyun is breathing hard.

Taeyong is too but Taeyong is livid and also possibly spitting. Jaehyun just stands there, barely breathing, not shying away from Taeyong’s eyes, and for some reason, nervously casting little glances at Taeyong’s lips.

“ _Taeyong-hyung_ ,” Mark says.

Taeyong doesn’t care.

He stabs his finger one last time into Jaehyun’s chest, snarls out, “ _emotions_ ,” in something nearing a growl, and then retreats, spinning very quickly to get to the apartment door. “I’ll see you in class on Saturday, Seonsaengnim,” he tells Johnny over his shoulder, as he goes.

“What?” Johnny says.

“What?” Mark says.

Jaehyun just makes a punched little noise, but still doesn’t appear to move.

Taeyong gives zero fucks.

Taeyong goes home.

Taeyong ends up standing in front of his open fridge, staring into it like it’s going to show him the answers to the universe, white-knuckling a bottle of juice like his life depends on it. What the fuck has he done? What the fuck has he _done_? What possessed him? Where was his self-restraint? His self-control? His self-preservation? Why did Mark let him into the apartment? Why did Johnny let him into his photography class? Why did Taeyong—Taeyong’s grip on the juice bottle goes even tighter and his vision starts to go wonky—tell Jaehyun to send him a _dick pic_ —

His phone chimes, loud in the silence of Taeyong’s apartment and with the impact of a gunshot.

Taeyong swallows but fishes the thing out of his pocket regardless. He unlocks his phone. He clicks on the notification. He opens KakaoTalk. He stares down at the photo Jaehyun has sent him, then clicks on it to enlarge it, then clicks back to see the accompanying caption.

`Never let it be said that I back down from a challenge`, Jaehyun has said. And then sent the smirking emoji.

Taeyong stares at the emoji, then clicks on the dick photo, then very slowly lowers his phone. He doesn’t drop it on the ground. He stares back into his fridge. He closes his fridge. He uncaps the bottle of juice, brings it to his lips, and takes frantic, frantic sips. And, well.

It turns out there is such a thing as a beautiful dick after all.

* * *

It’s nearing nine p.m. the next day by the time Taeyong realizes that Jaehyun hasn’t texted him anything or stopped by Taeyong’s desk to make sure he deleted the photo of Jaehyun’s dick off his phone. Taeyong and Ten didn’t take lunch that day, because Donghae-hyung wandered by when Taeyong was fiddling around with Taeyeon-noona’s logo in Photoshop and had a design epiphany, which led to him changing _the entire layout_ after Taeyong had already put in the final order. (The sample issue was a thing of the past thanks to Jaehyun; turns out, it was a mix-up, and they sent exactly what Ten had asked for.) That decision went over about as well as a bomb in the office and not even Ten was mad about it, because it was very clear to everyone that Taeyong was just as panicked about the situation as the rest of them.

Taeyeon-noona’s company swag is thankfully not needed until later in the year so it’s _fine_ , but Taeyong still doesn’t take lunch and Taeyong still feels like he’s about to expire, and between it all, he doesn’t even think about Jaehyun.

Not until nine p.m. Not until he’s getting in the elevator, so exhausted he’s having trouble even seeing straight, and Jaehyun is already in it, staring at him with very wide eyes.

Taeyong doesn’t have the energy for this. “Hello, Jaehyunnie,” he says.

“Uh, hi, Taeyong-hyung,” Jaehyun says. He very kindly presses the button to close the elevator doors, and Taeyong is so relieved.

“Thanks.”

“I take it you, uh, heard about the last-minute design change for Taeyeon-ssi,” Jaehyun says.

Taeyong doesn’t even bother to hide his despair. “It’s my fault,” he says. “I was looking up inspiration and Donghae-hyung saw.”

Jaehyun’s mouth rounds into a circle. “Ah.”

“Yeah.” Taeyong very glumly watches the elevator move slowly down floors. “Was it very bad for you all upstairs?”

Jaehyun winces. “Well, not me—I didn’t have to do the calling, Chanyeol-hyung did—but, uh—the supplier was—not pleased, shall we put it.”

“I feel you,” Taeyong says, in the same toneless voice. “Once I had to change an order when it was even more complete than this one and the supplier literally tried to send me all the stock anyway. It was company wristbands and not anything too substantial, thankfully, but you can pack a lot of those into one box and I was giving them away as gifts for literally months afterwards. Not to mention all the calling Donghae-hyung had to do to make sure the client was okay with us even giving them away to begin with.”

Jaehyun looks like he understands, because he’s nodding.

“Anyway, I’m glad you weren’t the one getting yelled at, Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong finishes, as the doors of the elevators finally spring open to the lobby. “Getting yelled at sucks.”

Jaehyun nods some more. “Thank you.”

Taeyong can’t help but notice that the tie he’s wearing this evening has candy hearts on it, each of them spelling out little words. He points.

Jaehyun lifts his chin. “I’m a Valentine’s Day baby,” he says.

Taeyong blinks. “Oh yeah, happy belated birthday, Jaehyun-ah,” he says, even though it’s not even the fourteenth anymore. The doors try to slide shut. Taeyong sticks a foot out to keep them from doing so. “Aren’t you getting out?”

For two seconds the two of them just look at each other, and then Jaehyun practically scrambles out of the elevator. “Right. Yes. Thank you, Taeyong-hyung.”

Taeyong manages something of a smile. “See you tomorrow,” he says, then starts off at a snail’s pace towards the exit.

“See—see you, Taeyong-hyung,” he hears Jaehyun call after him, but he doesn’t do more than lift a hand to wave over his head in response.

* * *

`I’ve realized, Ten-ah, Doyoung-ah`, Taeyong says, as he’s sitting on the train barely managing to keep his eyes open. `Jaehyunnie didn’t make sure I had deleted his dick photo.`

He clicks briefly into his chat with his neighbor, Hong-ahjusshi, who very kindly took the time to feed and walk Ruby that evening. `Thanks again`, he says, before switching back. There is nothing but resounding silence from both of his friends.

`I’m sorry`, Doyoung says finally. `Jaehyun didn’t make sure you deleted his what photo?`

Taeyong draws the phone closer to his eyes and stifles a yawn, noting that the bunch of kids sitting next to him can’t seem to stop staring at him like he’s some sort of famous person, and not just your usual nine-to-five worker. `Did Johnny-hyung not tell you?` he asks. Then he pauses, thinking about that. It’s possible Jaehyun just didn’t tell anyone, actually. It wasn’t—Taeyong doesn’t still have the photo because he’s not that much of an awful person, but from what he recalls, Jaehyun clearly had taken the photo alone in his bedroom. But there had been—Taeyong hates to admit—more than an arm’s distance and more than just his cock, which really did make the thing that much more… artistic and dare Taeyong say emotional. But Jaehyun probably wasn’t going around advertising the situation. It wasn’t like he’d have had any reason to; he sent it to the right person, unlike Taeyong.

Taeyong sighs. `I might have gone over to his place last night and harassed Johnny-hyung until he let me join his photography class`, he tells Ten and Doyoung. `And then I may have challenged Jaehyun to send me a dick pic. Maybe.`

`Hyung`, is all Doyoung says.

`Yeah, Hyung`, Ten agrees.

Taeyong stifles another yawn and shifts so that the man sitting next to him can get up and get off at his stop, a woman’s pleasant voice announcing that the doors will be opening on the right of the train at their next stop in both English and Korean. `Anyway, Jaehyunnie didn’t come and make sure I’d deleted it`, he says. `I mean I did, but he doesn’t know that. Is that weird? I feel like that’s weird. Why does he trust me so much?`

For some reason Taeyong gets the feeling that Ten and Doyoung are doing virtual Rock Paper Scissors to decide who’d going to have to baby Taeyong this time, but he’s too tired to really even care.

`Well, gee`, Doyoung says. `I feel like the weirder thing is the fact that you and Jaehyunnie are in the middle of a literal dick pic war, but by all means, talk to me about your trust issues.`

`I don’t have trust issues`, Taeyong says. `Fuck you.`

`Sorry, Yuta-hyung stole my phone`, Doyoung says. `And sorry Yuta-hyung now knows all about your dick pic war, Taeyong-hyung.`

Taeyong heaves out another long sigh, casting a look up at the map of his train line, which is flashing to let him know they’re just about to his stop. `It’s fine`, he says. `I’m fine.`

`You very clearly aren’t fine`, Ten says. `Taeyong, you’re sending people photos of your dick.`

`It’s just that work is crazy, and Kyungchul broke up with me`, Taeyong says. `I’ll be fine once we’re done with this project, honest.`

`Taeyong-hyung.`

`I’m fine`, Taeyong says. `We’re all going out for Jungwoo’s birthday this weekend anyway, yeah? I just need to unwind, and then I’ll be totally back to normal.`

`If you say so.`

`I do say so.`

`I still think it’s weird`, says Doyoung. Then, `Fuck, I’m sorry, that’s still Yuta-hyung.`

`He’s right`, Taeyong says. He stands to get off the train with the rest of the people taking his stop. `Thanks, Yukkuri, for always being honest.`

`Taeyong-hyung.`

`I am fine`, repeats Taeyong. And he is, totally, totally fine. Totally.

* * *

It’s the fourth day in a row that Taeyong’s abandoned the design team at lunch and Donghae-hyung is starting to sing dramatic break up songs whenever he walks by Taeyong’s desk on his way out into the hall, but Taeyong doesn’t care. He shuts down his computer and this time takes his lunch with him, but still makes the trek to the elevator and then up to the twenty-eighth floor so that he can talk to Jaehyun. He’s not planning on staying that long this time, hence taking his lunch. He’s just going to make sure things are good with him and Jaehyun—going to clear the air. Jaehyun will be going to Jungwoo’s birthday lunch on Sunday with the rest of them, so Taeyong has added incentive to get things straightened out. Not that Taeyong thinks things are weird, but Yuta’s words are still sort of swirling around in his head, more than twelve hours later. It’s only covering his bases, for Taeyong to be standing here at Jaehyun’s desk.

Jaehyun isn’t here.

Sicheng is at his desk, though, and is this time not on a call. He’s clearly already clocked out for his own lunch break, picking idly at his nails while also waiting for Jaehyun. The rest of the purchasing team appears to have already gone to lunch as well, because the hum of the office is significantly more quiet.

“Uh,” Taeyong says.

“Taeyong-hyung,” Sicheng says politely. “Hello.”

“Hi, Sicheng,” Taeyong says. “Is Jaehyun—”

“He’s in the bathroom,” Sicheng says, nodding in that direction like Taeyong is going to go off and walk in on Jaehyun peeing, or something. He says nothing after that, just keeps fiddling with his nails, and Taeyong’s gaze zeroes in on Sicheng’s desk décor, which is mostly just photographs with the man that is very clearly his husband, Kun. The two of them are smiling with their arms around each other, standing outside what looks like a restaurant of some sort, or maybe a small business. The nameplate is all in Mandarin, though, so Taeyong doesn’t know what it says. Whatever it is, it’s got to be food related, because there is a little graphic of a bento box next to the title.

Taeyong looks at the neat little box lunch sitting on Sicheng’s desk. He has a very vague memory of Ten talking to him about Sicheng’s husband, Kun. They’ve been married for a while—didn’t date for that long, or something—and Taeyong thinks Ten was at the wedding? In the wedding? He looks at Sicheng’s wedding ring. He swallows.

“Uh—I’ll just be going,” he says, before he can say anything embarrassing. Then he makes a right angle turn and heads in the direction where Sicheng had indicated, deciding that anything is better than this awkward silence—even walking in on Jaehyun peeing.

Thankfully, Jaehyun is not at the urinal or coming out of a stall when Taeyong bangs into the bathroom. Instead he’s standing at the sink washing his hands, expression in the mirror benign and rather thoughtless. He startles when Taeyong comes through the door like he’s doing something particularly damning, though, but he only jumps a little and somehow manages to maintain his cool. “Taeyong-hyung, hi,” he says after only a small pause.

Taeyong stares at him, then stares at the running water and the soap, then closes his eyes. “Sicheng said you were in here,” he says, then opens his eyes again.

Jaehyun appears to be repeating the words back to Taeyong like he can’t help himself, before giving himself a shake, and very quickly turning off the water. He crosses to grab paper towels and starts drying his hands. “Here I am,” he says. “Did you need something?”

Taeyong is stuck watching the way his back moves when he yanks the paper towels out of the dispenser. The shift of his dress shirt against the muscles of his shoulder blades is more than a little distracting. He’s not wearing the suit jacket this afternoon and he’s got the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to show both pale forearms, and Taeyong can’t help but watch those as well, when Jaehyun turns to face him again. They’re like… the same color as his shirt. It’s… _absurd_. “Did I… need something?” he parrots.

Jaehyun finishes with the paper towels and tosses them into the trash can without even looking.

Taeyong’s throat goes dry. “You,” he manages.

“Me?” Jaehyun prompts, seemingly more relaxed than usual, less nervous. He’s still got just a hint of a wall up, like he thinks Taeyong is someone important and worth looking up to, but he’s starting to be more comfortable around Taeyong, and it shows. Taeyong—for some reason Taeyong feels weightless, and airy, and pleased.

“Me,” he agrees, before the absurdity of that exchange catches up with him. “I mean, do you think it’s weird that we’re in a dick pic war?” he blurts, trying to save face.

There is a beat.

Jaehyun’s eyes go a little wide. He casts around the bathroom like he’s checking to see if they’re alone. Taeyong doesn’t know if they are, but he says, “we’re alone,” anyway.

Jaehyun immediately seems to believe him, which is—something. Taeyong doesn’t know what.

“I wouldn’t say we’re in a war?” Jaehyun says. He sounds like his texts—like he’s adding question marks after every other word. Taeyong wants to laugh—it’s weird how Taeyong is finally starting to learn what Jaehyun sounds like when he _texts_ , when he talks. (It’s weirder still how they’ve been coworkers for two years, how Mark’s been Taeyong’s friend for three years, how Jaehyun has been Mark’s roommate for more than three years, how they’ve never really hung out, never really exchanged words, only ever been acquaintances smiling awkwardly at each other across the room at parties.)

“Oh.” Taeyong pauses. “You wouldn’t?”

“Well, a war implies something ongoing, don’t you think? I wasn’t planning on sending you more. Were you planning on sending me more?”

Taeyong blinks. “What? No, of course not, what the fuck, Jaehyun—”

“So, then it’s not a war,” Jaehyun says, before Taeyong can pick up too much panicked steam—bless him, honestly. “It’s more like… an eye for an eye.”

Taeyong nods. “An eye for an eye.”

“Right,” Jaehyun says. “You sent me one, so I sent you one, and now we’re even.”

“Now we’re even,” Taeyong agrees. “Wait, what?”

“Anyway, I’m going to go to lunch now, but you’re welcome to use the bathroom—”

“Wait, what?” Taeyong says again. “I mean, yes, I mean—” He stops talking and walks immediately into the first stall, head spinning. He’s still holding his lunch in one hand. He’s—he’s a walking disaster. “You are a walking disaster, Lee Taeyong,” he says out loud, before he can help himself. He’s turned and locked the door so that he can maybe actually try to use the bathroom when there is the sound of a throat clearing.

“I wouldn’t go that far, Taeyongie-hyung,” says Jaehyun, and Taeyong—Taeyong trips and slams face forward into the metal door.

His nose immediately starts bleeding.

His pride, which had started to feel like perhaps it could recover, very rapidly gives up the ghost.

“Ow,” Taeyong says.

“Oh my God, Taeyongie-hyung, are you okay?” Jaehyun says.

“Fine,” Taeyong says, very clearly not fine. “But if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to try to drown myself in the toilet.”

“What? No—hold on a second—let me just—” One of Jaehyun’s very pretty hands appears in Taeyong’s line of sight holding a handful of paper towels, which Taeyong just stares blankly up at, confused. “Hyung. You need to unlock the door.”

Taeyong feels a whimper start in the center of his chest, but does so. “Jaehyun-ah,” he says as the door swings open. “I’m a disaster.”

“No you’re not—here.” Jaehyun steps closer to Taeyong and shoves the paper towels in his face, clearly aiming for Taeyong’s nose, but missing because Taeyong isn’t helping. “We should clean that up, probably. Who knows what maintenance will think.”

“That the drone of office life has finally become too much for someone and now we’re one short a family member, poised on the precipice of despair and untimely end?” says Taeyong hopefully.

Jaehyun squints at him, and then resumes his quest to get the paper towels in Taeyong’s nose. He succeeds this time, and immediately afterwards holds his fingers in front of Taeyong’s eyes, snapping twice in quick succession. “Are you concussed?” he says. “You sound concussed. How many fingers am I holding up?” He holds up two; Taeyong tells him.

“I’m not concussed. The only thing damaged is my pride,” Taeyong says. “Well, and my nose.” His voice sounds weird, given the paper towels.

“I’ve got tissues at my desk. Come on.” Jaehyun puts an arm around Taeyong’s shoulders and starts to steer him.

“Wait.” Taeyong halts, not moving his head. “My lunch.”

There’s the sound of Jaehyun bending to get it, and then his arms are back to being around Taeyong’s shoulders, his body warm against Taeyong’s side. “Come on. My desk.”

Taeyong follows, because the alternatives are pretty damn bleak. “Sorry, Jaehyun-ah,” he says, more than a little maudlin. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Jaehyun says. “I should apologize. I’m sorry for startling you.”

Taeyong waves a hand, trying not to notice the blatant stares they’re attracting as they parade past what appears to be the entire sales team with Johnny and Yuta at the front, clearly on their way towards the elevators.

“What?” Johnny says.

“Hi, Jaehyunnie,” Minho-hyung says.

“Hi, Minhho-hyung,” Jaehyun says.

“I rest my case,” Yuta says.

Taeyong doesn’t flip him off, but only because he’s too busy holding onto Jaehyun’s arm with one hand and holding the blood inside his nose with the other.

“So I take it you’re not eating with us,” Sicheng says, when they get back to Jaehyun’s desk and Taeyong has been sat down and had his paper towel wad replaced by real tissues. They’re in a bright pink, heart-shaped box that proclaims, “Be My Valentine,” in big letters. Taeyong sits and stares at it the best he can while tipping his head down and keeping up the pressure.

“Really?” he says, eyeing the tissues and Jaehyun.

“Shut up. Johnny-hyung has a terrible sense of humor. No, sorry, Sichengie.”

Sicheng shakes his head, seemingly bemused. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, as he stands, holding his perfect looking bento in one hand. “But tomorrow—”

“Tomorrow I’ll go with you. I promise,” Jaehyun assures him. “It’s the third Friday of the month; the only time Mark will willingly be seen in public with Johnny-hyung.”

Taeyong’s mouth starts to fall open. “Is _that_ where he goes?”

Jaehyun shoots him an amused little look, grinning. “Yeah—anyway, I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Yeah, okay.” For some reason Sicheng’s got an equally mischievous look on his face, but he shifts to leave the office anyway.

“Bye, Sicheng,” Jaehyun says, tone very emphatic.

Sicheng just keeps grinning but goes.

Taeyong reaches for one of Jaehyun’s boxes of chocolates and tugs it open, brow raised.

“It’s not my fault people give me chocolate,” Jaehyun mumbles, then manages something resembling a smirk. “I’m very good looking, Taeyong-hyung. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Taeyong rolls his eyes and picks up the card. He reads, “‘To Jaehyun-hyung, from Mark.’”

Jaehyun’s cheeks burn bright red and he grabs for the card, but Taeyong leans out of his reach. “‘To the man who has everything but love, because he’s a stubborn idiot who’s choosing instead to pine’—hey, I was reading that,” Taeyong says, breaking off into a whine when Jaehyun snatches the card back.

He very pointedly puts it in a drawer in his desk, which Taeyong notes locks. Jaehyun meets his eyes. “Tilt your head forward,” he orders. “Put pressure on your nose.”

Taeyong immediately does both things, trying not to notice the little thrill that goes through him, or the way Jaehyun’s pupils ever so slightly seem to widen in response. “I was reading that,” he says again. The words come out significantly more stifled.

“Our friends are awful people,” Jaehyun says. “Every year they get me the worst stuff—nothing useful, only chocolate—”

Taeyong feels bad, thinking about what that must be like, and opens his mouth.

“That’s a lie,” Jaehyun says immediately. “Johnny-hyung got me my own bowling ball and Mark chipped in to get me some lessons at one of the lanes.” His ears are flushing again and it’s really fucking cute.

“Do you bowl?”

“I like sports,” Jaehyun says. “And being outdoors—I hate being cooped up, you understand.”

Taeyong doesn’t because Taeyong usually can’t relate. He’s normally much more content to just stay inside with his dog and his friends, but for some reason he finds himself wanting to agree. Not in a lie on your second date sort of way, or anything, but more so that he wouldn’t mind with Jaehyun. It’s enough to snap him out of it. He tentatively pulls the tissues away from his nose to see if he’s managed to stop the bleeding.

“Taeyong-hyung?” Jaehyun’s looking at him with mild confusion, back to sounding and seeming the full two years younger.

Taeyong tips his head back and sniffs. “Has the bleeding stopped?” he says, honestly curious. Then he regrets it, because Jaehyun has to come close in order to check.

“Uh, not yet,” Jaehyun says. “Sorry.” Like it’s his fault Taeyong’s like this. “Here.” He gives Taeyong more tissues, then settles more solidly into the extra desk chair he dragged over.

Taeyong takes the tissues and restuffs his nose. “Jaehyun-ah,” he says. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“Right,” Jaehyun says. “I don’t?” He sounds so shy and hesitant and young that Taeyong pulls the tissues away again so he can better look at him, not sure if he wants to hug him, or reinjure himself for apparently having been such an appalling excuse of a hyung to Jaehyun the last two years. Like, Kyungchul was an asshole but Taeyong let him turn Taeyong into one, what the fuck?

Taeyong is struck very suddenly by déjà vu, the memory of a conversation he and Johnny had not too long ago—or maybe, far too long ago—coming to the forefront of his mind. Johnny said, “Listen, I really wish you’d just give Jaehyunnie a chance. He’s hilarious, and nuts, and you’re the exact same kind of crazy, so you’d definitely get along,” and Taeyong just stared at him blankly and repeated his question, “can you ask Chanyeol-hyung if he’ll kill me if I have him change the texture on the cuff detailing for Heechul-hyung’s sweatshirts?”

He swallows. “No,” he says. “You don’t.”

Jaehyun is still staring.

Taeyong shifts his grip on the tissues. “I mean, Jaehyun. We’re—we’re friends, right?” His voice goes up very, very high at the end, but he holds it together because Jaehyun probably just thinks it’s because of Taeyong’s bloody nose, not Taeyong’s bloody… fucking idiot heart, or… whatever.

The smile that Jaehyun breaks out into is, quite honestly, utterly unfair. His cheeks turn into twin dimples and his skin looks somehow even paler—even prettier, even milkier—and his eyes fucking sparkle. Taeyong doesn’t even know how he holds it together. “Friends,” Jaehyun says, like Taeyong’s offered him fucking… the winning numbers to the lottery.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’ve—you’ve seen my dick—and I’ve seen yours, so.” Taeyong shrugs.

Jaehyun’s smile morphs into more of a smirk. “Is that a prerequisite for friendship with you, Taeyong-hyung?” he says. “Mutual exposure?”

Taeyong narrows his eyes and crosses his arms. “You tell me. You’re the one who lives with my oldest company friend.”

Jaehyun’s mouth parts and for two seconds he looks nervous, but then he seems to notice the grin hiding behind Taeyong’s hand, the smile brightening the corners of Taeyong’s eyes, and he’s back to looking like sunshine. “That’s true,” he says. “And your oldest company friend really has zero shame.”

Taeyong risks the tissue and points with his non-free hand. “I’m going to have to stop you there,” he says. “I’ve managed to remain unscarred by said oldest company friend, and that’s mostly because I don’t live with him and his boyfriend refuses to mix work and pleasure.”

Jaehyun laughs, head thrown back and voice deep and throaty. “Yeah, you’re right about that,” he says.

Taeyong can’t help but grin back at him, in time for his nose to drip and his stomach to audibly growl. He and Jaehyun end up moving as one, hands colliding in their quest to grab hold of the tissue box and Taeyong’s lunch.

“Sorry,” Taeyong says first.

“Sorry,” Jaehyun says second. He pulls his hands back, looking awkward.

Taeyong tips his forward, nose stuffed full of a new handful of tissues, and sighs. “It’s my lunch break,” he says somewhat pointlessly. It’s clearly Jaehyun’s too. “I, uh, should stop bothering you and go back to my desk.”

Jaehyun nods, but then, with another one of those terribly shy, tentative looks says, “or you could stay?”

“Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong says. “I may not have been the most… available”—immediate regret; only regret; Kyungchul’s final text message proclaiming the same at the forefront of Taeyong’s dumb thoughts—“of hyungs, but even I know there’s no way you’re this shy with anyone else.”

For some reason, Jaehyun’s ears are the reddest Taeyong thinks they have ever been in his presence. “Yes, well, you’re—” He abruptly stops talking.

Taeyong stares at him with bated breath. “Yes? I’m…”

“Hungry,” Jaehyun decides, and reaches for his own lunchbox. “We should eat.”

Taeyong narrows his eyes at him, but concedes the point, taking his chopsticks when handed them and shifting in his seat. “Sure,” he says. But then, of course, he softens, because it’s Jaehyun, and he’s still smiling, and he packed and made his own lunch too, and now they’re talking about cooking.

It feels like the fastest lunch hour Taeyong’s had. Sicheng comes back right on the hour followed by Yuta, who takes one look at the two of them and rolls his eyes.

Taeyong and Jaehyun have ended up engaged in a frankly life changing game to see who can snort a tissue higher into the air; Taeyong, at present, because Jaehyun is a fucking weakling with zero breath control. Clearly he hasn’t sucked nearly as many cocks as Taeyong has—it’s possible the blood loss has gotten to Taeyong.

“Wow,” Yuta says. “Wow.”

“What?” Taeyong says, not at all feeling guilty and mostly focused on where Jaehyun is taking deep breaths in dramatic preparation. “Wait, hold that thought, I need to—you’re cheating, Jaehyun-ah! Hands behind your back!”

Jaehyun immediately makes like Taeyong’s a cop with handcuffs, but flips him off American-style with both hands before doing so.

Yuta coughs and Taeyong glances at him. “Nothing,” he says. “Nothing at all.”

Taeyong narrows his eyes, ready to try out his basic Japanese, but before he can, Chanyeol-hyung comes walking past all of them at a speed that is honestly frightening.

“Lunch break is over.” Chanyeol-hyung doesn’t even appear to look at them as he goes by. “Lee Taeyong! This isn’t your floor!” he barks. “Nice to see you’re no longer bleeding, though!”

Taeyong would like for the ground to swallow him whole. “Uh.” He stands, gathering his limited amount of trash and recycling and then quickly stuffing the chopsticks back into his lunch box to wash when he gets home, since there’s no way he’ll have time to take them to the kitchen. “See you around, Jaehyunnie?”

Jaehyun’s got a look in his eye that Taeyong is rapidly starting to realize means only bad things. He’s embarrassingly competitive and he’s keeping one hand on the tissue box like it’s its fault he’s lost, but he nods. “Yeah, see you.” He looks nervous for a split second, then grins. “Don’t be a stranger.”

Taeyong’s heart does a funny thing. “You too,” he says, then bows semi-awkwardly to a still-staring Yuta and a more bemused-looking Sicheng, before hurrying out the door. He still hears Yuta start talking before he’s escaped, and the words, “so tell me again why you thought showing him your dick was the best way to make friends?” echo in his head the entire elevator ride. But that’s not important, and Taeyong is not going to make a big deal about it.

Doyoung is waiting for him when he gets back to his desk, occupying Ten’s chair. He spins around dramatically the moment Taeyong sets down his lunchbox, grinning. “I heard that you took one look at Jaehyunnie and your nose started bleeding, straight out of a manga.”

Taeyong puts his middle finger in the air, not even looking at his friend. He’s too busy reading his latest text from Jaehyun, a simple, `Did you make it back to your desk okay, Hyung? No more unnecessary bleeding?` He feels giddy and nothing is going to ruin that.

“Who are you texting?” Doyoung hedges.

Taeyong glances up at him, notices he’s even gone so far to mime stroking an imaginary cat, and throws a pen at him. “Fuck off, Doyoung,” he says. “Why are you even on this floor?”

Doyoung grins, dodges the pen, then picks it up and starts twirling it between his fingers. “So it is true,” he says, then points, when Taeyong stares. “You’ve got a little something.” He fingers his collar. Taeyong looks down at his own, notices he does have a spot of blood on it, thinks horribly that he and Jaehyun _didn’t go back and clean up the bathroom_ , and wonders if he’ll be able to look any of the janitorial staff in the building in the face ever again.

“You just. Shut up,” Taeyong says. “I walked into a door.”

Doyoung’s eyes start to glitter with unconcealed glee. “Sorry, you what, Taeyong-hyung?”

Taeyong levels him his most unimpressed stare, swiveling to face his computer and unlocking it with a tap to the button on his monitor. He logs in with his work password and username, still not making eye contact. “I walked into a door,” he mutters.

Shockingly, there is no laughing, but when Taeyong turns to investigate, he finds it’s not because his friend has suddenly grown a conscience. It’s because Doyoung is buried in his own phone, fingers practically flying over the screen. Ten has come back to reclaim his desk and is watching Doyoung type, expression equally gleeful.

“I don’t even want to know,” Taeyong decides. “Why are you here?”

Doyoung lowers his phone, still grinning, but rapidly composes himself. “Work stuff,” he says brightly. Then, with considerable more levity, “Taeyong. The Space Big Star things.”

Taeyong fights the urge to bury his head in his hands. “Right, yes, before Independence Day—we have the samples—”

“What do they actually look like, is what I need to know—”

“Well, like collars,” Taeyong starts to say, then reaches into a drawer in his desk to find the cursed thing in question so that he can very quickly thrust it towards Doyoung for his perusal.

At his side, Ten is gaping. “When did those arrive?” he says. “I thought I told you I wanted to be present.”

“You were in the bathroom totally not visiting with Lucas,” Taeyong says. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Taeyong-hyung. They are human sized collars!”

“For work,” Taeyong says. “For—for fucking work—what does Heechul-hyung even do—”

As one, Doyoung and Ten stop investigating the leather work and stare at Taeyong with matching looks of pity. “Taeyong-hyung,” they say, also as one.

“It’s cute,” Ten says.

“He’s adorable,” Doyoung agrees.

Taeyong hates them both. “Why don’t you two just—leave,” he decides.

“Kay.” Doyoung hands Taeyong the collar back. “But follow up with purchasing—”

“But Heechul-hyung already wants to buy them from us—he asked us to get them for him—”

“Doesn’t matter.” Doyoung at least sounds apologetic. “Sorry.”

Taeyong sighs. “Okay.”

Doyoung’s lips quirk. “It shouldn’t be too much of a hardship for you to talk to purchasing, should it?” he says.

“Doyoung—”

“—a little birdie told me you spent your entire lunch break down there—”

“ _Doyoung_.”

“—bleeding all over the place like you’re in an anime—”

“For the last time I _walked into a door_ —”

Amber-noona walks behind the three of them and all of them immediately go silent, even though she’s just on her phone and clearly heading to Donghae-hyung’s office. Once she’s gone, Taeyong is grateful to see that the interruption has broken Doyoung’s rhythm, and that his friend is pulling a face.

“Just let me know—”

“I will, yes,” Taeyong says. “I do actually know how to do my job, Doyoung-ssi.”

Doyoung raises both hands and grins, but leaves.

Taeyong heaves a sigh, goes to compose himself, and clicks open an email to Jaehyun. Technically he ought to be following up with Taemin-hyung, since he’s the one Taeyong usually does all his intra-agency back and forth with, but for some reason… Jaehyunnie. It’s… it’s nice. Taeyong feels nice.

Until Ten leans over and puts his chin on Taeyong’s shoulder and says, “You really do smell like blood, Taeyongie-hyung,” and, “Did you really get a nosebleed just because he was, what, washing his hands with his sleeves rolled up?”

Taeyong gapes.

“What?” Ten shrugs. “Sicheng’s my dude. I know Kun. We go way back.” He grins. “ _I_ went to the wedding.”

“You are my least favorite person in this entire office,” Taeyong tells him vehemently, before shoving him off. “Now leave me alone and let me work.”

Ten cackles, but retreats regardless. “Spoilsport.”

“Working.” Taeyong settles into his chair to go back to work. He thinks about Jaehyun, about lunch, about… how they’re friends, now. _Don’t be a stranger_ , Jaehyun said. `Did you make it back to your desk okay, Hyung? No more unnecessary bleeding?`

Taeyong doesn’t intend to be a stranger. Taeyong should text him back only… Taeyong feels weird now, on top of the nice. Awkward. Like whatever adrenaline that’s been pumping through his veins since he woke up that Monday has finally managed to recede, and now all Taeyong is left with is the aftertaste and the regret.

He closes out of his email to Jaehyun, winces when the message goes into his drafts instead of his trash, but can’t bring himself to fully purge it out of existence. He opens the company chat messenger and pulls up a window with Taemin-hyung instead. `Taemin-hyung`, he types. `Marketing needs you to follow up with the supplier for the collars. They want to double check the specs on them.`

Taemin-hyung’s reply is instantaneous. `Why? They don’t need to market it to anyone else. Heechul-hyung already said he wants like a hundred.`

Taeyong winces, thinking about the mix up with the bracelets, and extra not inclined for there to be any mistakes before Space Big Star’s annual spring membership training. He was able to give some of the bracelets to his family; he absolutely will not be able to do the same with human collars complete with name tags. `That’s just what they said.`

`Ugh, fine. I’ll follow up.`

`Thank you.`

Taemin replies with a thumbs up.

Taeyong closes the messenger window, then goes back to his email client. He glances at his trash folder. He opens it. He deletes the drafted message to Jaehyun and winces again when the pop up asks if he really wants to delete it. He does. He really does. He’s… fine. He’s not being a stranger, he’s just, working as he always does, with Taemin-hyung.

* * *

Only Taeyong doesn’t text Jaehyun all of Thursday. He ignores his message and even goes so far as to turn his phone on do-not-disturb for the rest of that night, so he’s not getting any messages, and not replying to anyone. On Friday he goes to lunch with the design team like usual, lets Ten know that the reason Mark isn’t with them is because he’s actually being a good boyfriend, and doesn’t think about who else Mark is hanging out with.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Taeyong-hyung?” Ten says, in between bites of food. Amber-noona and Donghae-hyung are engaged in an argument about Donghae-hyung’s favorite idol group and Taeyong is doing his best to appear engaged but not too engaged, the incident where Donghae-hyung mistook his professional interest as actual interest and somehow Taeyong ended up designing cup sleeves and banners for a fan event way too recent for him to risk it.

“Yeah for sure,” Taeyong says and wipes pointedly at his mouth.

* * *

On Saturday, Taeyong has his first photography class with Johnny. It’s not the first class unfortunately, but there’s a mix of experienced photographers and people who are just as confused and new as Taeyong, so the fact that Taeyong’s two classes behind doesn’t end up being much of a problem. Not all of them have professional grade cameras because Johnny is a very firm believer in working with what you have and can afford, and if what you have and can afford is a smartphone, oftentimes you’re on par with or better than professional grade cameras. Taeyong is glad, because Taeyong just has the latest iPhone, because he’s whipped, and a workaholic, and splurges mostly on nice clothes and his dog.

They’re spending the class reviewing some of the things they’ve apparently already gone over, such as aperture and shutter speed, and also learning about some very basic lighting. By the time they’re done, Taeyong has more than a few shots of a still life and various scenes from around the classroom—not of the other students, since Johnny has instigated a strict no people policy until they’re farther along into the curriculum. That Johnny has a legitimate curriculum is somehow the most striking part of the entire situation, although the expertise with which he wields both the classroom and the camera does not escape Taeyong’s notice. (He kind of gets why Mark’s dating him, now.)

Taeyong’s actually starting to feel a little bad about the fact that he’s only here to learn how to take better dick pics, and not even that, anymore, since he and Jaehyun have called a ceasefire. But he feels like he’s learning a lot and his classmates are nice and Mark will probably literally sabotage all of Taeyong’s designs for the rest of the quarter if Taeyong tries to drop the class, so.

Taeyong’s here.

Taeyong’s learning.

Taeyong’s… not bad at this.

“You’re actually kind of a natural,” Johnny even goes so far to tell him, after class. Taeyong stayed to help him clean up the classroom, partly out of guilt, and partly because Johnny is one of the more calming people he knows, and just being around him is enough for him to finally start to relax.

“Thanks for that underhanded compliment, Johnny-hyung,” Taeyong says dryly.

Johnny grins at him but keeps disassembling tripods with both hands.

Taeyong once again goes to help him, but Johnny waves him off. “I’m glad you actually came, Taeyong-ah,” he says.

Taeyong blinks. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Well, Jaehyun said that you two, uh—” He pauses, clearly trying to find words.

Taeyong takes pity on him. “Called a ceasefire?”

“Yes, that.” Johnny looks relieved as he finishes with one of the tripods and hauls it upright to put it in its case. “He said there was no reason for you to come, anymore.”

Taeyong kicks his legs in the air a little, perched awkwardly on top of the stool. All of the stools in Johnny’s classroom are high—the building doubles as an art studio, and Taeyong’s still not entirely sure how Johnny has this gig but isn’t about to question it. He’s good at it, and it makes him happy. “Yes, well, there’s no reason not to try to improve,” Taeyong finds himself muttering, his cheeks feeling warm. “And I—I mean I’m. I’m having fun, Johnny-hyung.”

Johnny glances at him, then at the photos he’s still got up on his phone. “They’re good, Taeyong. Honestly, you should show Jaehyun.”

Taeyong stares at him with what he feels like are huge, huge eyes. He waits for the, “I told you so.” He waits for the judgment and the laughter. None of it comes.

“You can show him you’re actually not bad at ‘emotions’ or ‘artistry’ when you’re actually trying and not drunk off your ass.”

Taeyong feels heat burn in his cheeks. “Hyung,” he says.

Johnny shakes his head. “You barged into my apartment at two in the morning to harass my boyfriend into nepotism, Taeyong-ah,” he says.

“That’s not—” Taeyong tries to protest. “I did not—he was the one who opened the door—”

Johnny stops disassembling photography equipment and levels a gaze at him with one brow raised.

Taeyong flushes harder. “Whatever,” he mumbles.

Johnny laughs. “But seriously, text him,” he says over his shoulder, not looking at Taeyong and instead straightening chairs.

Taeyong gets off his own stool and starts to help him do much of the same, heart starting to pick up speed. “Has he… does he want me to text him?” he says.

Johnny is silent for a moment. “Yeah, clearly, Taeyongie,” he says. “He wants you to text him. That’s kind of the point of him texting you first.” There’s nothing else, no judgement, no, “haven’t I been telling you forever that the two of you would get along?”

Taeyong fumbles out his phone, clicks into his chats, hits the camera button, and selects his photos. `Sorry it’s not my cock, but I like to think I’m making progress, at least?`

The moment he hits send he regrets the joke but he can’t take it back, because Jaehyun has seen it and—

`Taeyong-hyung these are really good, you’re a natural.`

Taeyong’s throat feels clogged, guilt swirling in the pit of his stomach. Fuck, he’s been an idiot. He and Jaehyun don’t have to be weird. He and Jaehyun can just be friends, now. Friends who’ve… seen each other’s cocks. That’s… not—that’s not weird? “Thanks, Johnny-hyung,” he hears himself say, still staring down at his phone.

`Thanks, Jaehyunnie.`

Whatever Johnny says in return gets lost in between Jaehyun’s next two texts. `I still think you’re too close to your subject, though. Two words: selfie stick.`

`I’m going to brain you to death with a selfie stick`, Taeyong says. `My gut says it wouldn’t be possible because those things are flimsy, but you better watch out, Jeong.`

`Are you sure you’re not going to brain yourself to death with a bathroom door first, Lee?`

`Haha`, Taeyong says. `You’re hilarious.`

`Thank you, I try.`

Taeyong grins, ready to keep going, only to end up stopped by a hand on his shoulder. “Hyung?” He looks up. Johnny has his bag on his shoulder, the tripods hoisted on another, and the tables and chairs have been put back into place.

“Are you ready to go?” he says.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Taeyong says. “Thanks.”

* * *

After that, it’s easy to text Jaehyun, to keep texting Jaehyun, to… actually try to finally _befriend_ Jaehyun. They smash headfirst through whatever wall was keeping from being more than just two people who knew each other and had more than a few friends in common, and start to be two people who laugh and talk shit and absolutely destroy everyone at indoor sports on Sunday, when they all go out for Jungwoo’s birthday at Legend Heroes in Myeongdong.

It’s easy.

Being with Jaehyun is easy.

Also, their friends are _really bad at indoor sports_.

“Yeah hold on,” Mark says, after the third game, where Jaehyun and Taeyong have even gone so far as to reduce Jungwoo—the man of the hour himself—to decimated silence. The final score of him and Doyoung versus Jaehyun and Taeyong at the Make Your Body Into Shapes With Your Partner game is literally not worth repeating. “Play us, next.”

Johnny looks over from where he’s been perfecting the art of shooting a bow and arrow in a corner with Ten and Lucas. “Us?” he calls. Sicheng’s husband Kun is a surprising natural at archery, and he’s standing over there with the two of them as well. Taeyong still hasn’t really had an opportunity to be introduced to the man properly but Ten likes him, and Ten is a good judge of character, so. Also Kun might be the best cook of the group, according to Jaehyun, which Taeyong knows is no small compliment, even only having had lunch with him that one time.

“Yeah, us. You have to go up against a couple,” Mark decides, ignoring the fact that he seems to have caught Jaehyun mid cough, because he immediately seems to be choking on air, and Taeyong has to hit him on the back a few times bracingly. “We’ll have the advantage. We know each other really well.”

“Oh, then we’ll play the winner,” Sicheng calls, leaving Yuta, Taeil-hyung, and Donghyuck to go put an arm around Kun with a grin that seems surprisingly out of place, given how calm and collected he is in the office. “It’ll be like boss level—new friends, boyfriends, and finally husbands.”

“Hey,” Taeyong hears himself protest. “Jaehyunnie and I have known each other for like three years.”

Sicheng just grins, then gets distracted by Kun leaning in to whisper very quickly in his ear.

Mark is still frowning hard at the game screen, seemingly memorizing the instructions. “Hyung,” he addresses Johnny, then very rapidly switches into English.

Taeyong sighs, tuning him out and exchanging a look with Jaehyun. But Jaehyun is just blinking between Mark and Johnny, clearly amused.

“It’s not my fault I’m just naturally good at everything and Taeyong-hyung listens really well, Mark,” Jaehyun says in Korean.

Taeyong blinks. “Wait do you—”

“He lived in Connecticut for four years. Please do not ask him about it—”

“You’re the one who got me drunk enough to make the video in the first place—”

“You’re the one who told us seriously you could rap—”

“I can rap. I could have been an idol. Have you seen my face—”

“Have you seen your rap video—”

“Anyway.” Jaehyun clears his throat. “I can speak English.” He looks uncomfortable for a second. “I’m the only one in purchasing who can.”

He shoots a quick look at Mark and Ten, only leaving Johnny out because he still hasn’t left the bows and arrows.

“Oh cool,” Taeyong says, for some reason feeling jealous, but not knowing why. “Uh, I’m sorry?”

“Taeyongie-hyung sits right next to me, Jaehyun-ah,” Ten explains, leaving the archery range to come set up camp beside the shape game. “You should come by and visit sometime next week—maybe not next week, Taeyong has a deadline—but after. He gets to hear all my English calls.”

“English calls are the worst,” Jaehyun agrees. “I usually have to take them. And Chanyeol-hyung—” He breaks off, looking awkward.

Ten is staring at him like Christmas has come early. “Chanyeol-hyung?” he says.

“Never mind,” Taeyong says, taking pity on Jaehyun and stepping closer. “You were challenging us?” He’s addressing Mark and Johnny.

“Yes,” says Mark. “Johnny!”

“Coming, my love,” Johnny says, finally leaving the archery game with a mock bow. Mark’s cheeks pink a little, but he grins.

Ten’s put an arm around Jaehyun, still exchanging horror stories from all those times their Team Leaders have had to let them take calls they really ought not to be taking, because they’re the only ones who can communicate. “It’s awful,” Taeyong hears Ten say. “But some of them know me by name, and they’re kind of sweet—”

Taeyong tunes them both out and goes to stand next to Doyoung, who’s got his own arm around a despondent looking Jungwoo.

“Sorry,” Taeyong tells him. “I know it’s your birthday.”

“Oh, I’m not upset I lost,” Jungwoo says brightly, with a sunny smile in Taeyong’s direction that is honestly frightening. “I’m just trying to decide how much blackmail material I need to have ready in order to get Donghyuckie to let me partner with Taeil-hyung.”

Taeyong follows his gaze to the pair in question, engaged in what looks like a very animated discussion with Yuta over by the virtual curling. He looks back at Jungwoo and finds him counting things off on his fingers. “Right,” he manages, turning to face Doyoung. “I don’t listen to Jaehyun any better than I listen to anyone else, do I?”

“Uh huh. Talk to me when the vision of you with Jaehyunnie’s hands all over your hips as the two of you all kill at the most couple game to ever couple isn’t still burned into my retinas,” Doyoung says, as Johnny and Mark successfully get into a weird seated position and pass their first hurdle.

Taeyong feels his cheeks color. “Shut up, Doyoung-ah,” he says. “The game isn’t about—chemistry.”

Johnny and Mark have to hold hands for the next round as they stare deep into each other’s eyes. Doyoung raises a brow.

“Shut up,” Taeyong says.

He and Jaehyun beat Johnny and Mark, though, which has nothing to do with chemistry, and everything to do with the fact that Jaehyun is, as stated, naturally good at everything. He almost carries them to victory when they go up against Kun and Sicheng, but it’s so close to a tie that everyone decides they _all_ should team up and play.

“Like a tournament,” Mark explains, with an expression that says he’s still a little annoyed about having lost and mostly just wants an opportunity at redemption. “Whoever wins the most… wins period.”

Jungwoo, Yuta, and Doyoung end up on one team after Doyoung very loudly points out that it’s fine that they’re a threesome because, “Taeyongie-hyung, Taeil-hyung, Jaehyunnie, and Donghyuckie aren’t even _real couples_ ,” which shuts up all the arguing and makes Donghyuck turn a color Taeyong thought reserved for tomatoes and other produce.

Jaehyun and Taeyong win the impromptu tournament, losses at soccer and the shape game notwithstanding, and Taeyong doesn’t think he’s had this much fun in a long time.

“It’s because we’ve seen each other’s dicks,” Jaehyun explains, as the staff start to gesture them out of the facility.

Everyone seems to choke on air, except Kun, who stares between them all, blinking. “You what?”

“I’ll explain later,” Sicheng says.

“Jaehyun-hyung,” Mark complains.

Taeyong lifts his head high and drapes an arm around Jaehyun’s shoulders. “It’s true. That sort of thing bonds you.”

“Hyung!” Mark is looking beseechingly at Johnny now.

Johnny just shrugs his shoulders. “You were the one suggesting that being lovers would make for better teamwork. I’ve seen your dick loads—maybe that’s why.”

“Hyung!” Mark’s face looks like you could cook on it, it’s so red.

Taeyong snorts, then hides his amusement in Jaehyun’s hair.

“Hmm?” Jaehyun turns to better look down at Taeyong, a smirk curving his lips and putting a dimple in one perfect, pale cheek. “You’re okay with me joking about it, now, right?”

It has only been two days and Taeyong is very newly one week single, but he finds that he’s not thinking of any of that, or bothered by any of that, and is only amused. “Yeah, it’s funny,” he says. “Our meet cute is straight up something out of a romantic comedy.”

Jaehyun’s other dimple pokes out. “I don’t know what sorts of romantic comedies you’ve been watching, Taeyong-hyung, but I much prefer stuff like _The Notebook_.”

Taeyong feels his mouth drop open. “I love _The Notebook_ ,” he says. “Noah is one of my favorite characters.”

Jaehyun’s answering smile is radiant. “It’s one of my favorite movies too,” he says.

“We should watch it sometime,” Taeyong says. “Like, after work, or something.” He grins. “You can meet Ruby?”

“Already introducing me to your daughter, Taeyong-hyung?”

“Shut up, I’ve known you for three years and also, as established, my ex was kind of an asshole—”

Ten breaks away from whatever conversation he was in the middle of to say, loudly, “I’ll say!” and Taeyong flips him off but feels buoyed none the same. Ten was the one who dragged him into a bathroom two hours into work on the fourteenth, sat him on a toilet and stared deep into his eyes and said, quite seriously, “I may give you crap but I know you loved him and I’m _sorry_ , Taeyongie, I’m so sorry,” so. Ten’s allowed to keep giving Taeyong crap.

“I think Ruby would really like you, Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong says.

For some reason that makes Jaehyun’s ears flush, but he smiles.

* * *

On White Day, Taeyong finds himself up on the twenty-eighth floor eating lunch with Jaehyun again, as he’s ended up doing pretty much every day since Jungwoo’s birthday. The day before Independence Day (and the day after _Ten’s_ birthday) they ate lunch out, but that was because Taeyong had met his deadline and Donghae-hyung fell victim to Jaehyun’s dimples and decided it would be okay if Jaehyun dragged Taeyong across town to buy a proper desk chair at Ikea in celebration. They stopped and got street food and then nearly got kicked out of Ikea for racing desk chairs around the store—Jaehyun was right; such things were important when making expensive purchases. Then they nearly got thrown out of the building for making too much noise as they were transporting the thing up the elevator and to Taeyong’s desk. In Taeyong’s defense, Jaehyun making car noises might not have been funny to anybody else, but to Taeyong _it was hysterical,_ mostly because all he could think about was the look on the Ikea lady’s face when immediately after she’d finished her very impassioned speech about proper behavior in a public place, Jaehyun put his foot on an imaginary gas pedal and said, “vroom vroom.”

On the third Taeyong was too busy for lunch, but he and Jaehyun went to DDP together to see the LED rose garden after work. Taeyong had his first photography assignment due that Saturday, and somehow forgot all about it until he ran into Jaehyun and Johnny in the elevator that night. Johnny was less than impressed to learn that Taeyong was, “not treating his class like the serious academic instruction it was,” but Jaehyun came over to meet Ruby for the first time and then dragged Taeyong a couple stops into the city to take photos of LED flowers. He played on the piano in the middle of the plaza and he gave Taeyong his jacket. It was sweet, and if Taeyong’s photos ended up being mostly of Jaehyun and not the light up flowers, who would judge him? Certainly not the rest of the people in Johnny’s photography class. More than a few of them were appreciative of Taeyong’s subject choice, which was annoying because it was supposed to be the flowers, not Jaehyun. Taeyong wasn’t upset because they were ogling Jaehyun and Johnny needed to stop looking at Taeyong like that because Taeyong was treating his class like the serious academic instruction it was!

So heading up to the twenty-eighth floor at twelve p.m. on White Day doesn’t seem like such a big deal, to Taeyong. It’s what he normally does. It’s part of his routine.

It’s certainly not worthy of the very obvious onceover Yuta gives him, coming to stand in front of Sicheng’s desk with a box of takeaway in one hand and chopsticks in the other. “Taeyongie. Hi,” he says. The onceover extends beyond Taeyong to encompass the entire grouping of desks, before settling back onto Taeyong and Jaehyun. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Taeyong squints at him. “Uh… Hi? I’m on lunch.”

Yuta takes another bite of his food, before letting his eyes crawl up and down Jaehyun this time.

Jaehyun stares right back. “Oppa, your desk is all over there,” he whines and points.

“Jaehyun-ah, Oppa is also on his lunch break,” sing-songs Yuta, utterly unconcerned.

“Why do you call him Oppa?” Taeyong asks, honestly curious, but Yuta only seems to grin harder.

Jaehyun shrugs his shoulders but doesn’t elaborate.

“Whatever,” Taeyong decides, leaning in for another bite of food off of Jaehyun’s chopsticks. “So, you were saying about fabric details—”

Yuta is, for some reason, now making horrible sputtering noises, but Sicheng stands and starts pounding him on the back, so he must just be choking on his food.

“Are you complaining about the fabric thing again?” Sicheng asks Jaehyun, seemingly unbothered. He shifts hands, slaps Yuta soundly in the center of the spine, and Yuta finally seems to dislodge the bit of lunch that went down the wrong way.

“Jaehyunnie is going to be complaining about the fabric thing until he’s dead and gone,” Yuta manages, only sounding a little hoarse. “Thank you,” he adds in Mandarin.

Sicheng just smiles gently, pleased. His phone beeps. “Oh, that’ll be Kun—”

“When are you going to convince him to leave you for me,” Yuta whines, grabbing for Sicheng’s hand and then pouting when he’s shook off. “Please, I’m Japanese. I have a greater appreciation for bento.”

Sicheng just shakes his head some more, before going to meet Kun at the elevators.

Taeyong eyes Jaehyun’s empty chopsticks with his own pout, until Jaehyun scoops up more rice and holds it out to him.

Yuta makes another noise, but when Taeyong looks, he’s not choking. Instead he just looks vaguely nauseated. “I’m going back to my desk,” he decides.

Taeyong tilts his head. “Okay.”

Yuta just keeps looking between them, this time looking vaguely disgusted, before leaving with an audible sniff.

“What was that about—” Taeyong starts to say, at the same time Jaehyun shoves more rice into his open mouth. He’s the one choking and sputtering now, but it’s mostly just sort of amusing: Jaehyun going shy and bemused, but trying not to laugh, and Taeyong trying valiantly not to spit food all over his desk.

“I’ve got to use the bathroom, but then we can go out?” Sicheng says, arriving back to his own desk with Kun.

“Okay.”

They separate, and Taeyong finally manages to swallow. He takes grateful gulps of the offered water Jaehyun hands him, gasping. “Hi, Kun.”

Kun smiles happily down at them, before pocketing his phone. “Are you two celebrating White Day together too, then?”

Taeyong pauses with a napkin halfway to his mouth. “Are we what?”

“Celebrating White Day?” Kun takes his hand out of his pocket and sits down in Sicheng’s empty chair. “Is it your first one? The two of you haven’t been dating for that long, have you?”

Taeyong blinks. “We haven’t been… dating?” he says. His voice sounds very, very high. He cannot bring himself to even look at Jaehyun. “We’re not—we’re not dating?”

Kun looks between the two of them with honest confusion. “You’re not?” he says. “But you’re—” He gestures.

Taeyong follows his gaze, unfortunately having to look at Jaehyun, who is frozen with his hands still holding the chopsticks and his eyes equally wide. “Eating lunch together?”

They’re interrupted by Sicheng’s return, and Kun stands immediately to greet him.

“Hi, sorry, I’m ready now.” Sicheng comes into Kun’s space with a grin, leaning into him and shifting like his automatic response is to go in for a quick kiss, before they both seem to realize where they are, and very abruptly take a few steps away from each other. “Uh… Taeyong-hyung? Jaehyun?”

“Sicheng,” Taeyong says, ignoring whatever that was. “Did you tell Kun that Jaehyun and I are— _dating_?” He absolutely does not squeak when turning his sentence into a question nor does he whisper the last word.

Sicheng turns his attention to Kun, whose eyes are still very wide, before turning for some reason to stare at Jaehyun. Taeyong turns to stare at Jaehyun as well, and watches him go from composed, to very clearly embarrassed, to noticeably white knuckling the chopsticks. Neither of them speaks.

Finally, Kun seems to take pity on them all. “Are you not dating?” he says. “How are you not dating? Because… I mean you hang out all the time. I bring Sicheng lunch every day and you’re always sitting together and Taeyong-hyung touches your hair constantly and”—he breaks off, leans in to whisper like they’re in some sort of period drama—“you sent each other _private photos_.”

Sicheng winces, raising both hands. “Jaehyun—”

“I’m going to kill you, Dong Sicheng,” Jaehyun says through gritted teeth. He’s still pointedly not looking at Taeyong, and Taeyong doesn’t know what to do with that. “See if I don’t.”

Sicheng keeps holding up his hands. “Kun and I don’t have secrets.”

“Untraceable, irreversible murder,” Jaehyun says.

“I think murder is by definition irreversible, Jaehyun-hyung,” points out Lucas, and Taeyong hadn’t even realized he was still here, still listening in, still… being tall, and able to make eye contact with all of them over the top of his cubicle. “But what photos, Kun-hyung?” He’s looking at Kun with frankly unfair puppy dog eyes and Taeyong has a brief moment of panic when he finds himself understanding Ten’s… “Xuxi thing,” before he gets it together.

“Wait, go back,” he says. “What do you mean ‘how are we _not_ dating’?”

Kun looks helplessly between his husband—who’s sat down at his desk and has started helping himself to Jaehyun and Taeyong’s abandoned lunch; has even gone so far to take the chopsticks from Jaehyun’s practically numb-looking, clenched hands—and Jaehyun, who really does look about two seconds from taking said chopsticks back and attempting to put them through said husband’s jugular. “Erm, well. Jaehyun has liked you for years, I thought—” He’s saved further discomfort by the arrival of Doyoung, walking towards their row, mid-conversation with Johnny.

“—I don’t see why I have to bother Chanyeol-hyung with any of it,” Doyoung is saying, not noticing any of them.

Taeyong lights upon him like a drowned man being cast a lifeboat. “Doyoung-ah!” he bellows.

Doyoung nearly fumbles the papers in his hands onto the ground and has to be steadied by a hand on his arm from Johnny. “Taeyong!”

“Am I dating Jaehyun?” says Taeyong.

There is resounding silence from the entire office, broken only but what sounds like Lucas, getting to his feet. “I’m getting popcorn,” Taeyong thinks he tells Sicheng in Mandarin. “This deserves popcorn. I should get Ten—”

He should absolutely not go get Ten and Taeyong is going to prevent him from doing so the moment he remember how to walk, the moment he regains feeling in his legs, the moment he stops replaying each and every instance of interaction he’s had with Jaehyun since Dick Pic Gate. There was… the second dick pic, which was just drunken stupidity because Taeyong had very recently been dumped, and, that time in the bathroom with the nosebleed, which was leftover stupidity from the second dick pic and totally just an honest, clumsy accident, and, Legend Heroes, with _all of their friends_. And… Jaehyun and Taeyong being very good at… couple games. Then there was… photography class and… Ikea… and DDP—not to mention all the… the texting… and the…. the hair touching… joking about introducing Jaehyun to Ruby, actually introducing Jaehyun to Ruby, spending every waking bit of free time at the office together, waxing poetic about Jaehyun’s smile, Jaehyun’s dumb dimples, his pretty hair, his blushing, blushing ears. The—Taeyong swallows—the feeding—Kun looking confused, saying, “Jaehyun has liked you for years?”—

“Oh my God,” Taeyong hears himself say. “Doyoung. Have I been dating Jaehyun _for an entire month_?”

Doyoung is looking at Taeyong like the only reason he hasn’t fled the scene is because Johnny is holding him there; Johnny is looking at Taeyong like he’s honestly concerned for the state of his mental health; Sicheng is still eating Jaehyun and Taeyong’s lunch; Lucas is terribly _no longer in the room_ ; and Jaehyun is—

Still sitting there, not moving, looking very purposefully straight ahead.

Taeyong opens and closes his mouth a few times, still honestly without words.

Finally, Doyoung seems to clear his throat. “Is this a rhetorical question?” he says. “Or a nightmare? I’m going to pretend it’s a rhetorical question _and_ a nightmare. Um. Johnny-hyung. You can let go of my arm, now.” Johnny does. “I’ll just—Park Team-jangnim!” He disappears into Chanyeol-hyung’s office, practically leaving cartoon dust in his wake.

Taeyong keeps sitting next to a barely breathing Jaehyun, still stunned speechless.

“Right.” Sicheng stands, pushing away from the food and handing Jaehyun back the chopsticks. Jaehyun takes them looking entirely too much like a robot, letting Sicheng manipulate his fingers without seeming to even notice. “We should go, before I lose my appetite.” He smiles at Kun, makes eyes at Kun, and picks up the beautifully wrapped White Day bento box. Taeyong feels like he’s watching it all take place as if through the windows of a car, or a plane—a spaceship.

They go, arguing about holding hands.

Taeyong re-focuses on Jaehyun. “Uh, Jaehyunnie?”

“Your lunch break is over,” Jaehyun says rather tonelessly, still sort sounding of like a robot. He stands. “I’ll walk you back.”

Taeyong manages to get to his feet as well. “Thanks,” he says.

It’s not until they’re almost to Taeyong’s desk on the twenty-seventh floor that Jaehyun snaps out of it, turning to look at Taeyong with suddenly very worried looking eyes, and somehow even paler seeming cheeks, all the color leached out of him by nervousness. “Look, Taeyong-hyung,” he says. “I—I like you a lot, obviously, and, well, I put you in my phone as ‘Hot Taeyong,’ but we can just stay friends? Nothing has to change—I really just want to at least be your friend? It’s been—nice, not being strangers. And not just because I see you all the time when you’re coming over to hang out with Johnny-hyung and Mark. I don’t want to go back to just being strangers.” He pauses, smiling tentatively. “Okay? Nothing has to change.”

Taeyong takes a deep breath. “Jeong Jaehyun,” he says with great dignity. “We have sent each other pictures of our dicks.” Jaehyun looks like he’s going to say something but Taeyong powers on over him regardless. “We cannot just be friends.”

The smile on Jaehyun’s face goes away so slowly it’s honestly heartbreaking, but then it comes back looking so much worse, so much more fake, professional, and pasted on. “Oh—okay—” He turns to go.

“Yah.” Taeyong is aware he might be standing in the middle of the hallway shouting and making a scene, but he does not honestly care—for a month, for a month, for _a month_ — “Where do you think you’re going?”

Jaehyun blinks at him, frozen not more than two steps away. “Uh… probably to go cry in the nice bathroom on the twenty-nineth floor?” he says honestly, voice more than a little shaky.

Taeyong wants to shake _him_. “Not before you let me kiss you, you aren’t,” he says, somehow still managing something resembling dignity, grace, and professional veneer. “Boyfriend,” he’s sure to add, in case that was not clear.

Jaehyun stares.

Taeyong starts forward and takes one step and then two so that they’re toe to toe, nose to almost nose; Jaehyun’s wet, startled-looking eyes suddenly so close that Taeyong could count his eyelashes. “And it better be a good kiss, Jaehyun-ah,” he says quieter, this time, looking up at Jaehyun and doing his best to smile. “I mean I’ve already seen all of you—”

Someone’s making awful gagging noises in the background but Taeyong _honestly does not care_ , at this point, he’s so happy, so weightless, so buoyant he feels like he could float all the way to North America.

“—and we have been, apparently, been dating for almost an entire month—”

Jaehyun’s standing so close to Taeyong and he’s gone and put his hands on Taeyong’s hips and he’s going to kiss Taeyong and Taeyong _asked him to_.

“Yah—Hyung, I know you tell me it’s not a big deal but there are—there are rules—” says Mark, standing somewhere in the background, not the one gagging. “Also, I knew it. I knew it. I knew it—” He keeps going, keeps repeating those three words.

“Literally what did you know, Mark Lee?” says Ten over and over alongside him. “What did you know? They’re idiots. Doyoung says Taeyongie had to _ask_ —had to be _told_ —”

Taeyong looks at Jaehyun and wants to say, “Fuck the rules,” but somehow, he takes a step back, puts his hands by his sides, and doesn’t. “Boyfriend,” he says again.

Jaehyun looks back with stars in his eyes. He looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands now that they’re not on Taeyong’s hips. “Boyfriend,” he repeats.

“Later,” Taeyong decides.

“Later,” Jaehyun agrees. He drops his hands. He turns on his heel. He rounds the corner to the elevators.

Taeyong feels his way backwards until he’s through the doorway into the office, and turns to watch all of his friends scramble frantically back towards their desks. Amber-noona and Yerim clearly haven’t moved from where they’re seated over by the printer looking at what looks like an entire portfolio, but Ten and Mark have both ended up crammed into Ten’s cubicle grinning eagerly at Taeyong, and even Taeil-hyung’s chair is still spinning from the momentum of throwing himself bodily back into it. Donghyuck is thankfully occupied with whatever he’s working on for Donghae-hyung that morning, but not even trying to be the best intern in the building can keep him from waggling his eyebrows when he sees Taeyong looking. He schools his features when Taeil-hyung wheels over to look at what he’s done so far, though.

Taeyong sinks shakily into his unfairly comfortable Ikea chair. “Mark?”

“Yeah, Taeyong-hyung?” Mark comes into Taeyong’s cubicle practically like a puppy, part of the way shoved by Ten, who sits down in his own chair and makes to go back to work.

“I’m going to need you and Johnny-hyung to feed Ruby after work.”

Ten somehow manages to fumble reaching for a stapler and dumps an entire carton of paper clips all over his desk. Taeyong ignores this.

“Okay,” says Mark. “We can do that.”

“And don’t come home until at least midnight, maybe one.” Taeyong watches Ten start to clean up the scattered pieces of metal. He holds his head high. “You owe me.”

Mark nods another time.

Donghyuck looks like he’s having a fit, trying so hard to sit still with Taeil-hyung leaning almost all the way into his space as they read over what has to be a memo.

“Why do I—we—owe you?”

Taeyong drops his chin. “Two words,” he says. “Jaehyunnie’s bed.”

Mark winces. “Listen,” he says. “Wait you know about that? Jaehyun-hyung told you?”

“Haven’t you heard, Mark Lee?” Ten says. “Taeyongie-hyung’s been dating Jaehyunnie for an entire _month_.”

Taeyong feels himself start to smile. “I have,” he whispers. “I have.” He feels giddy. He pulls out his phone so that he can change Jaehyun’s name in his contact and adds a truly unnecessary amount of heart emoji, grinning. When he comes back to himself, Ten is staring at him with thinly veiled disgust all over his unfairly attractive face, his beautiful nose all scrunched up. (And. Wow. Those things they say about love coloring the world with roses; they weren’t lies.)

“You sicken me,” says Ten, righting the paperclips and vanishing the box into a drawer at his desk.

Taeyong looks at him, then at the collage of photobooth selfies of him and Lucas circling the entirety of Ten’s monitor. He points.

Ten lifts his chin. “Sickening,” he reiterates, nose in the air. “Heechul-hyung is in Donghae-hyung’s office, incidentally,” he adds.

Taeyong nearly face plants onto his desk. “Heechul-hyung is what?”

“I told him you were on lunch,” Ten continues, watching. “He said he’d wait. He and Donghae-hyung go way back, apparently.”

Taeyong stands, pockets his phone, and goes back to work. So, he’s not single anymore. So, he’s been dating Jaehyun for nearly a month. So, once the day is over, Johnny and Mark are going to vacate Jaehyun’s apartment to feed and take care of Taeyong’s dog, and Taeyong is going to go back to Jaehyun’s place.

So, Jaehyun has a frankly _gorgeous_ dick.

So, what?

Taeyong is a professional.

* * *

“First things first,” Taeyong says, shoving Jaehyun backwards into his, Johnny, and Mark’s apartment. He’s careful to avoid the row of shoes and also to add his own to the mix. “Rules.”

Jaehyun stumbles, nearly goes down falling, and only stays upright because of Taeyong’s hold on him. “Rules,” he manages. “Rules.”

Taeyong has a split second of panic. “Yes, I—is that weird? Is that bad? I’m—I mean I just—I just want you—I don’t have any rules—I have—orders— _shit_ —that’s _weirder_ —”

Jaehyun’s pupils, if possible, blow even wider. “Orders,” he says, like a fucking revelation, a prayer.

Taeyong is… Taeyong is going to _lose his mind_. “You are not real,” he says, and then he’s going up on his tiptoes so that he can kiss Jaehyun some more.

It backfires; Taeyong finds himself the one being kissed, getting kissed. Taeyong finds himself the one being walked back, swung around, guided along, and tumbled down onto the couch. Taeyong has Jaehyun’s tongue in his mouth, like liquid fire, like something to burn up in, blurring time, space, and basic thought. He’s thankful for the basic metabolic function keeping his heart going and his lungs breathing, although the seam of Jaehyun’s lips is making that last one difficult and the taste of Jaehyun’s tongue is making that first one difficult. Taeyong doesn’t want to do it on the couch, wants a bed, needs a bed, demands—and it’s all so confusing, so heady, the way Jaehyun is in turn demanding and then retreating, like he can’t decide if he wants to pin Taeyong to the sofa and ruin him, or turn over and ask for much the same.

They break apart. Jaehyun’s chest heaves, his eyes gone glassy and unfocused. “What are your rules?” he breathes.

Taeyong doesn’t know.

Taeyong wasn’t thinking when he said that.

Jaehyun is a masterpiece.

“A bed,” Taeyong manages. “It better be big, Jaehyun-ah.”

Jaehyun looks suddenly chagrined.

“I know how much we make, Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong says. “You don’t even have to pay all of the rent—”

Jaehyun drops his face into Taeyong’s chest and hides, clearly embarrassed. “I—”

“And that’s not even getting into the fact that I know you have a rich family—”

Jaehyun lifts back up, blushing high across both cheeks. “I don’t—we don’t—can we not—”

Taeyong looks at him and sees his age for the first time in this whole… month long journey from acquaintances to fast friends to lovers, boyfriends… soulmates. (Is that too fast? Is that too soon? Has Taeyong gone fully crazy?) “Is it at least a queen?” he says. “Tell me it’s at least a queen.”

“It’s—” Jaehyun’s got pink spreading to the tips of his ears, down the back of his neck, and disappearing under the collar of his work shirt.

Taeyong gets him by the tie and holds him by the tie, tightens his grip and tugs just to watch the way Jaehyun starts to shake, starts to shudder, stares down at Taeyong with his mouth open all the way wide. Taeyong wants to put his dick in it, wants to—wants to _wreck him_ —

And for a second Taeyong is scared, Taeyong is terrified, Taeyong is fourteen and _naive_ , calling people names, calling people slurs, making trouble, too big for his britches, _a child_ , _stupid, stupid, stupid_ —

“Taeyongie-hyung?” Jaehyun’s no longer looking at Taeyong like he’s his nightmare turned wet dream, but instead like Taeyong is something precious and worth keeping.

Taeyong swallows. He holds tighter to Jaehyun’s tie. “It’s what, Jaehyun-ah?”

Jaehyun’s lashes flutter. “Yours—a double—”

“I’ll _double you_ ,” says Taeyong, right up against Jaehyun’s lips, and kisses him.

“What does that—” Jaehyun squirms, trying to retreat, but Taeyong’s having none of that, holding him by the makeshift leash and keeping him right in place, at the perfect distance to kiss him, bite him. He puts the other hand in Jaehyun’s hair just to feel if it’s as soft as he remembers, because he has been petting it often, all week, all month, without even thinking about it, of course Kun noticed. “What does that mean?” says Jaehyun, shaky and entirely undone. “Oh God—Taeyongie—”

He’s hard when Taeyong drops his hand off his tie so that he can feel him, cupping him through the thin fabric of his dress pants. “Dunno,” Taeyong says, as he strokes. “Don’t care. Show me the bed.”

“Right this—” Jaehyun moans, drops his head forward and rests it right against Taeyong’s neck and just breathes, gasping like he doesn’t know how to keep doing it. “Right this way.” He doesn’t move— just keeps addressing Taeyong’s collarbones instead of his face. “You know which is mine.” He still doesn’t move; stays buried up against Taeyong, keeping him pinned to the couch so there’s no way they can even get up.

Taeyong looks down at him and keeps his hand on his cock, the other tracing the line of his nape and petting through his soft, soft chestnut hair. “Look at me, Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun’s head comes up so fast Taeyong’s nose nearly collides with it. “Hyung.”

“Are you okay?”

Jaehyun’s lips part on something like despair. “Oh, Hyung, _yes_ , please—” He sounds distracted—his hips keep fucking around in tiny, involuntary circles so that his dick drags against the palm of Taeyong’s hand. “Please don’t—I just mean—I just need—”

“Bed,” Taeyong orders. “Get on the bed. On your back. Naked. Don’t touch.”

Jaehyun’s staring at him like he couldn’t possibly keep his mouth shut, but he’s frowning, shaking his head. “Oh, Hyung, _no_ , please—I don’t—not—”

“Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong says, with just enough heat to make even his own toes curl. “Do I have to tell you twice?”

And Jaehyun—goes.

For two seconds Taeyong just lies back against Jaehyun, Johnny, and Mark’s couch, staring at their ceiling. He traces the familiar splotches and blemishes marring the paint and looks directly into a light until his eyes hurt. And then he drops his hand down into his own lap, feels the heat of his own dick—his gorgeous, beautiful, selfie stick worthy dick—and gets up.

Taeyong loses his pants and his socks and undoes the buttons all the way down his shirt on his way into Jaehyun’s bedroom, deciding that they can pick up after themselves later. He unknots his own tie and lets it drop onto the ground by his pants, sheds the dress shirt, fingers the hem of his boxers. He looks up at Jaehyunnie, on the bed. He’s not lying down.

He’s naked and he’s lovely and practically glowing, he’s so pale, so ethereal, so… storybook. He’s got blood lips and snow skin and Taeyong has butchered the fairytale but he doesn’t care—Snow White was written about Jaehyunnie; Taeyong wants to write songs about Snow White that are blatantly about Jaehyunnie. He’s got color high on his cheeks and his head thrown up high and his cock looks like it hurts, hard and curving up towards his belly button and the line of hair running down his six pack like an arrow. His mouth is swollen and he’s biting at his bottom lip like it’s the only thing keeping him even seated on the bed, hands digging into the sheets. Only—Taeyong notices as he eases out of his own boxers and steps closer—Jaehyun doesn’t have sheets on his bed.

Taeyong stares. “Jaehyun,” he says. “Where are your sheets?”

Jaehyun’s hold on his _bare mattress_ only gets harder. “I don’t,” he says.

Taeyong is in love with a pod person from another planet. “You had better have condoms,” he decides. “And lube—you’re lucky I’ve been dying to blow you since you sent me that photo—no bedsheets, dimples, an outie belly button—” He gets closer and notes happily that Jaehyun has provided the condoms and lube in question, seemingly without needing anymore prompting. He nudges a hand into the center of Jaehyun’s chest and pushes, shoving until Jaehyun has no choice but to fall back onto his bed on his back.

Jaehyun squirms again, not only just so that he’s more optimally positioned, but like he doesn’t _want_ to be on his back; like it’s taking everything in him not to buck Taeyong off.

Taeyong settles over him on his haunches and stares, head tilting. “What are you doing?”

Jaehyun stops shifting around on his mattress and gazes up at Taeyong with large eyes. “Of course, you’d want to do it like this,” he says.

Taeyong feels his brow raise. “Like this.” He reaches out and plucks one of the condoms off the mattress and makes a show of tearing the wrapper, glancing around Jaehyun’s modestly sized room in search of a trash can. He finds one and, with a glance down at a still frozen Jaehyun, tosses the trash there. “What… face to face?”

Jaehyun lifts his chin, jaw jutting out stubbornly. He stays silent.

Taeyong holds the folded-up condom in one hand, considering. He pinches the tip. “You don’t want to do it face to face?”

“I don’t want to do it—missionary,” says Jaehyun, like one would talk about something truly horrific, and not just a sex position.

It’s a testament to how far gone Taeyong is that he’s still just holding the tip of the condom, still hard and eyeing Jaehyun’s unfairly pretty cock. He’s not any less hard either, Taeyong notes. Despite the fuss. “What’s wrong with missionary?”

“Nothing.” Jaehyun sounds so vehement and angry, but still isn’t moving. His eyes keep flicking between Taeyong’s face and mouth and Taeyong’s fingers, carefully holding tight to the bit of lubed latex. “I just—you don’t have to be—nice—to me, Taeyong.” He leaves off any sort of formal address, just says Taeyong’s name with nothing. “I don’t want—I want you to be… _mean_ —”

Taeyong isn’t having flashbacks, or trapped in a spiral, or reliving any past. He’s leaning down, bending down, keeping his right hand at the ready but putting the left up close so he can brush Jaehyun’s cheek, press a thumb into the skin where his dimple sits, and hold. “I don’t have to hold you facedown to be mean to you, Jaehyunnie,” he says quietly.

Jaehyun shudders. “I know, but—”

“And I want to see you, when I blow you.”

Jaehyun’s lashes flutter and his mouth has gone open again; his breathing has picked up again and he’s white knuckling his bare mattress.

“And I—” Taeyong stops talking, considers his next words. “I don’t want to be _mean_ to you.”

Jaehyun tosses his head and goes to speak and Taeyong leans in and kisses him, nips him hard on the lip to make him still.

“I— _like_ you.”

Jaehyun makes a wounded noise and both of his hands leave the bed to clutch at the span of Taeyong’s shoulder blades, his eyes closing on what sounds very much like a sob, a whine. “You don’t like it like this.” Taeyong reaches down to find the head of Jaehyun’s cock and holds the tip of the condom there, working a second hand in so that he can start to roll the thing down. “Isn’t that mean? To make you?”

Jaehyun’s chest is heaving and his eyes are gazing mindlessly and his hips keep shifting as Taeyong hits the base of his cock, grazing his fingers at the crease where his thigh meets his pelvis. “I don’t—not like it—it’s just—”

“Exposed?”

“No.” Jaehyun shakes his head and lets both legs bow out so that Taeyong’s ass falls more neatly between them, Taeyong’s cock bouncing in the air as he drops. Jaehyun licks his lips. Taeyong goes nearly cross-eyed. He holds it together. “Not—it’s not that—it’s just—” Jaehyun throws his head all the way back and seems to gaze up at his ceiling, then at the wall his headboard sits against.

Taeyong takes advantage of the silence to further arrange himself on the bed, sliding down to get his knees under himself, his shoulders bracketing Jaehyun’s hips and his hands settling onto Jaehyun’s thighs.

“Fuck!” Jaehyun swears, and lifts his head to look down, watching as Taeyong kisses him on the hip, the pelvis, right along the happy trail. “It’s cheesy,” says Jaehyun. “It’s—romantic—”

“But you’re romantic, Jaehyunnie,” Taeyong says. “You’re cheesy. You love cheese.”

“I love—” Jaehyun swallows the end of the sentence by biting on his tongue so hard that Taeyong winces in sympathy. “I don’t—”

“You do,” Taeyong says, and then puts his mouth on him.

Jaehyun breaks off into swears.

Taeyong thinks, semi-disconnectedly, that it really has been so long since he’s sucked a cock, but. It’s not like it’s very hard, all things considered. Taeyong once dated a woman who told him that blowjobs were the easiest sex act, because all men love to have a mouth on their dick, and she was right, probably, although maybe Taeyong is good at this, at sucking dick, because Jaehyun hasn’t seemed to stop swearing, kicking at the bed and twisting his hands in the air like he doesn’t know if he has permission to touch Taeyong’s hair.

“Jaehyun-ah,” Taeyong says around Jaehyun’s dick, which only gets him more twisting, more moaning, and Jaehyun dropping a hand across his face so that he can try to muffle the noises. Taeyong can’t have that. He reaches up with one hand to find Jaehyun’s arm and shoves, pushes until he realizes Jaehyun’s got his teeth fixed into the skin of his bicep, and has to hold him with nails to get him to stop. “None of that,” Taeyong says, pulling off. “Let me hear you. And you can touch—”

“Fucking _hell_ , Taeyong-hyung,” interrupts Jaehyun. “Fucking hell—”

“You’re not coming,” Taeyong adds quickly, feeling inspired. “Not without proper bed sheets. I’m not laundering your mattress. It’s Tuesday. I don’t have time to launder your mattress on a Tuesday.”

Jaehyun lifts his head back up and gapes down at Taeyong, two spots of color on both cheeks. “You’re not what?” he says. “Taeyong, I’m wearing a condom—”

Taeyong reaches down to hold the base of said condom at the base of Jaehyun’s cock, and then, seeing the way Jaehyun can’t seem to stop staring at him, tightens his grip there. He’s not—this isn’t—Taeyong isn’t—but Jaehyun—Jaehyun’s face, the flush of his ears, the paleness of his skin, the rock of his hips. Taeyong leans back down and stuff his mouth full of Jaehyun’s dick as a distraction. He sucks, spends a few minutes bobbing up and down, then pulls off. “You’re right. You’re wearing a condom. So maybe—”

“Taeyongie, please.” Jaehyun has resorted to begging, pride abandoned in his need for an orgasm, and Taeyong’s head starts to spin like he’s still two seconds from deepthroating the man, gasping for air and running out of oxygen. “Please—please—”

“You’re not—” Taeyong pulls away from Jaehyun’s dick and ignores the way Jaehyun _whines_ , coming back up the bed so that he can better pin him to the mattress. “You’re not coming in my mouth,” Taeyong finishes. “You’re coming on my—my—dick—”

“Your beautiful dick, Taeyongie-hyung?” says Jaehyun, finally seeming to regain some semblance of control. He laces his hands together behind Taeyong’s back and just stares up at him, tossing his hair until his bangs are no longer sticking in his eyes, sweaty and tousled and looking so very pretty against the pillows. “Your beautiful, beautiful, very photogenic dick?”

“I thought you said my photos were terrible,” Taeyong manages, fumbling around in search of the rest of the condoms and the lube. He pops the cap and wets three fingers. “That they lacked emotion. Needed finesse.”

“Artistry,” Jaehyun breathes, hitching a leg around Taeyong’s hip and meeting his eyes head on. He doesn’t look like he hates doing it this way round anymore—in fact he doesn’t seem to even be noticing, let alone caring. “I believe I said artistry.”

“I’ll show you artistry,” Taeyong says, tearing open the second condom with his teeth. “I’ll show you emotion.”

“Yes—” Jaehyun’s agreement slices in half as Taeyong shifts to roll the condom onto his own cock. “Please—”

“I like you,” Taeyong finds himself saying again, condom on, fingers wet, and— “How many?”

“Nghhh two,” Jaehyun says.

Taeyong glances down.

Jaehyun scowls. “Fine—three—you sap—”

“You love it,” Taeyong says, and puts in one finger.

Jaehyun’s head dips forward, forehead ending up on Taeyong’s shoulder, both hands practically claws in Taeyong’s back. “I,” he says. “I—”

“Love it,” Taeyong finishes, and teases him with the thought of two.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun admits, sounding like the breath has been punched out of him. “I mean, I love—”

 _You_ , Taeyong hears anyway, but he’s kind enough not to mention it. “Do you want another?” he says. “So soon? I don’t think you’re ready.”

Jaehyun lifts his head, mouth open in a snarl.

“I don’t think you _deserve_ two,” Taeyong corrects, and the fight goes out of Jaehyun in a whimper. “What do you think, Jaehyunnie. Jaehyun. Jaehyun-ah.” The ugly voice tires to rear his head, giving Taeyong pause. “Is this—okay—”

“It’s more than okay, Taeyong-ah, more than okay—more than good—you’re good—you’re beautiful—”

“I didn’t tell you you could speak informally with me,” interrupts Taeyong, in time with the second finger and the tip of the third. Jaehyun had gone loose and welcoming but now he’s tight and unyielding, leg falling off Taeyong’s hip because he can’t seem to manage the muscle control to keep it there.

“You’re so goddamned _perfect_ , Taeyongie-hyung,” he says, whispers. “Now fucking _fuck me_ —”

“That’s rude. Don’t be rude. I’m your senior. Your sunbae. Your daeri, sawon-nim.”

Jaehyun groans some more and leans up to try to kiss Taeyong silent, breath hot and distracting. He tastes like lightning. He feels like lightning. He’s smart and funny and pretty and breathtaking, and he takes Taeyong’s dick like some sort of incubus, a demon made of sex, for Taeyong, and no one else.

“I feel like this is unfair, you looking like this and also fucking like this,” Taeyong says right up against Jaehyun’s temple. “You’re too good at everything. No person should be so good at everything. First times are supposed to be awkward.”

“You’re doing them wrong,” Jaehyun says. “Also, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You haven’t hit my prostate once and I am on my back—”

Taeyong twists on a backstroke and finally seems to hit bullseye, because Jaehyun’s sentence ends on a yelp that should not be sexy, and somehow actually is. “You were saying?”

“Nothing— _shit_ —nothing— _oh_ —”

Taeyong kisses him and keeps kissing him all the way through it, both of them tumbling over, complete with fireworks, light behind his eyes, and Jaehyun’s slightly pissed off expression, like the fact that they went over near simultaneously is actually insulting. “Yah,” he says. “You—you did something—”

“I did something?” Taeyong says. “I did something—you did something—you’re the one who’s—” For some reason “perfect” feels like going too far, which is absurd, given the circumstances. Taeyong’s dick is still inside Jaehyun. “Good at everything.”

“Ugh, you’re right,” Jaehyun says, and drops bonelessly back against his mattress. “I am. It’s totally my fault. I’m just a sex god.”

Taeyong rolls off him and slaps him in the chest. “Don’t brag.”

Jaehyun grins, then turns onto his side so he can look at Taeyong. “You love it,” he says, with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Taeyong has to hand it to him—maybe. “Mmm.” He eyes the condom still wrapped around his cock with a sigh. “I should—”

“No, let me—” Jaehyun sits up and reaches to take it off. It’s surprisingly hot, and Taeyong worries that all of his brain cells are in the condom in Jaehyun’s hand. He watches him tie it off, thinking terribly about cherry stems.

“Can you tie a cherry stem into a knot with your tongue?”

“Hmm?” Jaehyun gives the condom a bounce and then chucks it, not even looking, to go sailing neatly into his trash can.

“Never mind,” Taeyong decides. “God, it’s not even been a minute, Jaehyunnie.”

Jaehyun shoots him a quick grin, before going for his own condom. When that’s done, he keeps resting on one elbow, the other hand tracing circles down the center of Taeyong’s chest, ending up just at the start of his pubic hair. There he stops, just sort of looking, and Taeyong starts to feel self-conscious. All the things he said in the heat of the moment start to come back to him, the teasing, the—Taeyong swallows—near-edging.

“Can I help you?”

Jaehyun just keeps staring. “You really do have a beautiful cock, Taeyong-hyung,” he says. “I’m glad you put it in me.”

“Are you a real person?”

“Mm.” Jaehyun finally stops leaning on his elbow and settles for leaning on Taeyong, cuddling in close so that they’re intertwined. He also keeps staring.

Taeyong can’t. “Oh my God, _Jaehyun_ ,” he says. “Take a photo. It’ll last longer—” Already he regrets having spoken, but Jaehyun is already moving, sitting up and glancing around the room in search of something, and then, with an almost disappointed look at _Taeyong_ , like this is _his_ fault. Gets up. Taeyong watches him leave the room with his mouth open, curious. “Uh—”

“Sorry. Say cheese.” Jaehyun comes back in with his cellphone in hand, makes his way back over to the bed, and practically belly flops back down next to Taeyong, making Taeyong bounce.

“What—”

Jaehyun doesn’t use any flash when he takes the photo, doesn’t wait for Taeyong to stop bouncing, just shoves the phone right up to his hips and dick and taps on that center button.

Taeyong is speechless.

“There.” Jaehyun tilts his photo towards Taeyong so he can see. He sounds smug.

Taeyong opens his mouth. “What the fuck, Jaehyunnie? I’ve seen your photos. You’re so much better than this. Where is the”—he’s not sure how he’s holding a straight face, but somehow—“the emotion? The—artistry?” He’s laughing. He’s definitely laughing. The giggles are bubbling up. They’ve really come full circle. Jaehyun really is _so much_.

“Taeyong-hyung.” Jaehyun is so smug and happy and pleased. “Sometimes it doesn’t have to be that deep. Sometimes, a dick is just a dick.” He puts the phone down and puts a hand on Taeyong’s hip and grins even wider. “There doesn’t need to be emotion or artistry.”

Taeyong tackles him into the bed and somehow ends up pinned under him with his arms held over his head and his legs spread wide to let Jaehyun lie all his weight between them. “You are an asshole, Jeong Jaehyun,” he breathes, more than a little dizzy.

“Yes, but you like it,” Jaehyun replies, bending somehow even closer so that he can take one of Taeyong’s nipples in between his teeth.

“Tragically,” Taeyong says, then frees a hand to hold him by the back of his head. “Even though your photography skills leave something to be desired.”

Jaehyun lifts his head from where he’s been slowly working his way down the expanse of Taeyong’s chest, the end result clearly to return the favor. “What’s that?”

“I said you’re the one with the beautiful dick,” Taeyong says. “Now fucking put it in me.”

* * *

It is actually midnight before Taeyong ends up going back to his place to check on Ruby, and for some reason, Jaehyun decides to tag along. They showered together and Taeyong borrowed clothes so he didn’t have to put on his work things, which is so domestic that Taeyong is still kind of riding the high. Jaehyun is wearing his glasses now and Jaehyun is really attractive in glasses—Jaehyun is attractive, period, who is Taeyong kidding?—so it takes Taeyong an embarrassing amount of time to key in his passcode.

Jaehyun keeps up a running commentary as he types, scratching idly at the underside of his chin and drawing attention to the scattering of bites Taeyong left on his jaw, and that doesn’t help much either. It’s distracting. Taeyong can’t remember if it’s four-nine-one-six, or one-six-four-nine.

“I mean, she’s mine now, too,” Jaehyun says, as Taeyong finally gets the door unlocked. “Ruby. She’s—I mean—uh—shit.”

“What?” Taeyong steps into the apartment and Jaehyun follows.

“Never mind. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“No, what?” Taeyong says. He and Jaehyun take off their shoes.

Johnny and Mark are sleeping curled up together on Taeyong’s couch underneath Taeyong’s dog, dead to the world. They’re snoring. They’re holding hands. Taeyong and Jaehyun stare.

After a moment, Ruby lifts her head briefly in acknowledgement, before dropping it back down on her paws. She beats her tail gently against Johnny’s stomach a few times, all while looking only at Jaehyun.

“I said I could go back to my place, or I could help you get revenge on Johnny-hyung and Mark,” Jaehyun says finally, and Taeyong decides to let him get away with that.

“I like the way you think.” He may not be the one holding grudges because of that time the two of them fucked in his bed, but he’ll never turn down an opportunity to make Johnny squirm, especially given the man’s propensity for unrepeatable and entirely unhumorous April Fools pranks. (Although Taeyong will admit that that time Johnny and Mark left Doyoung in Shinsegae was particularly hilarious.)

Also he hates that he couldn’t just stay with Jaehyun, because he trusts Johnny and Mark, but Ruby is his child. Now he gets to have both. “But rule number one of this relationship, Jaehyun-ah.”

Jaehyun stops making faces at Taeyong’s dog and clasps both hands together in front of himself. “Yes?”

“No more dick photos.”

“Of course.” Jaehyun already has his phone out and has deleted the one he took earlier that evening. He flashes KakaoTalk, laughing when Taeyong rolls his eyes. Then he seems to brighten. “Wait, hold on.”

Taeyong blinks at him, confused. “Wait for what—” He stops, because Jaehyun’s come to shove the phone in his face. It’s just the last thing they texted each other, Jaehyun’s utterly boring default KakaoTalk background and the yellow and grey messages.

“I deleted it from everywhere too,” Jaehyun says happily, still waving around the phone. Taeyong is tempted to grab it from him and then just hold onto his hand—just because.

“Why are you showing me our KakaoTalk messages?”

“Not the messages. Your name in my phone,” Jaehyun says. “I changed it.”

Taeyong stares. Taeyong reads the contact information. `Hot Taeyong (bf)` it now says. “Yah,” Taeyong says. “How many hot Taeyongs do you know?”

Jaehyun just pockets his phone, still smiling, before heading towards Taeyong’s bedroom without even looking over his shoulder. “Do you mind if I use your toothbrush? Your dick was in my mouth earlier so I feel like you shouldn’t, but I know how you are about hygiene.” It’s said so simply and without any judgement that Taeyong can’t find it in himself to still be mad about the hot Taeyong thing. (He’ll just have to change Jaehyun’s name in his own phone to something equally absurd too like… Jeong… Jae… Taeyong will think about that.)

“Yah,” he says. “Yah.” He goes to follow Jaehyun. “‘Hot Taeyong boyfriend,’” he mumbles, going into his bathroom and coming to hook his chin over Jaehyun’s shoulder. “‘Hot Taeyong boyfriend.’”

“Would you rather go back to being just my coworker?” asks Jaehyun.

Taeyong frowns at him in the mirror. “Fuck no,” he says emphatically. “Now just—brush your teeth, and buy me a new toothbrush, and…” He breaks off, feels suddenly shy. “Come to bed and cuddle me.”

Jaehyun’s expression goes soft. “Taeyongie, of course.”

Taeyong points at his reflection. “And tell Ten absolutely nothing of this. Or Doyoung. Or Sicheng.” He pauses. “Kun.” He shudders. “Heechul-hyung.”

Jaehyun fucking pouts at him. “But, Taeyongie, Heechul-hyung is so supportive and happy for you. He even sent you mail!” He points towards the box that Taeyong has pointedly been pretending he didn’t have to give to Mark in the elevator after work with strict instructions not to open or look at and only to put in his room far, far away from the dog, lest she be confused and/or traumatized.

“Don’t look at that. It’s nothing. Heechul-hyung is—” Taeyong can’t even finish that sentence. “You know what? You just stay in the bathroom,” Taeyong decides. He separates from Jaehyun and strides purposefully back into his bedroom, climbs into bed, and hides under all the covers, still fully clothed. Jaehyun really does brush his teeth, the water turning on and off in time with him wetting the toothbrush, the song he’s humming almost familiar to Taeyong but not quite—Bruno Mars? H.E.R.? Lauv—probably Lauv—“Paris in the Rain”—Taeyong digresses—

The humming gets closer when Jaehyun ventures back into Taeyong’s bedroom, but Taeyong doesn’t peel the covers back, forcing Jaehyun to lie on top of all of them and most of Taeyong himself.

“Taeyongie-hyung,” Jaehyun says. “Taeyongie-hyung. Hyung, fighting, be well—”

Taeyong peels the covers back and glowers at him, face on fire. “Kiss me,” he says. “Kiss me and maybe I’ll forgive you—”

Jaehyun does.

**Author's Note:**

> It is a tragedy that the “accidental sexting” tag on ao3 has not been made common yet bc I desperately needed it hours ago and could not find it. 
> 
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